


Real Mermaids Don't Use Cell Phones

by Untherius



Category: Emberverse - S. M. Stirling, Real Mermaids Series - Hélène Boudreau
Genre: F/M, Unplanned Pregnancy
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-04-01
Updated: 2017-08-27
Packaged: 2018-01-17 18:54:08
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 22,805
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1398781
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Untherius/pseuds/Untherius
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Spring Break my Freshman year was turning out to be a bit odd.  Okay, so my whole life was turning out to be a bit odd.  But it had somehow become my new normal.  And I was okay with that.  I was even more okay with things being better than ever.  Yet something told me some even bigger changes lurked just over the horizon.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

Port Toulouse, Nova Scotia  
March 13, 2012

“See?” said my best friend Cori Blake perkily as I tucked my helm under my arm. “You're improving. You'll be Queen of the East in no time!”

I tipped my head back and laughed. “I'll be _sore_ in no time is what I'll be,” I replied, rotating my other arm. “No thanks to _you_ ,” I added, elbowing my boyfriend Luke Martin in his still-armored ribs with my own still-armored elbow.

Luke grinned at me. Somehow, he managed to be even cuter than usual with his sandy-brown hair sticking out from beneath a sweat-soaked padded coif.

“You're incorrigible,” I said, rolling my eyes.

“And that's why you like me.”

“I suppose.” I raised myself on my tiptoes as Luke bent down to kiss me. He still had the softest lips ever. Not that I'd ever kissed anyone else, nor was I sure he'd be the last guy I'd ever kiss. I was still fourteen, for crying out loud! Well, almost fifteen, but still. Yeah, there were days I felt far more mature than a lot of adults I knew, especially after last summer. But I still wasn't finished turning into a woman and I still had a lot of life ahead of me...and a lot of those annoying Life Choices.

I shoved that last thought toward the back of my mind as best I could. “Life Choices” had become a sort of catch phrase at school as of late. It was supposed to get us thinking about the future and about the fact that what we do today directly affects our lives ten, twenty, thirty years from now. Yeah, I knew it was true, but it also seemed to be a not-so-subtle tactic to get us all to study harder and make better grades and get higher scores on those irritating standardized tests.

Otherwise, all it really did was add to my stress. Yeah, I knew that stress was kind of relative. I didn't have bills to pay, taxes to file, a job to hold down, kids to manage, any of that. Not yet, anyway, and I was fine with that. Besides, it wasn't like I'd had a real mer-crisis in a while, either. And dropping my mer-boyfriend off at the ocean every other weekend no longer counted as a crisis. In fact, I'd grown rather accustomed to it. Was that a sign that I was growing up some more?

“So,” said Cori, breaking me out of my brief reverie, “does this mean you'll be entering the tournament?”

“If we can get transportation,” said Luke.

“If Mom and Dad will let me,” I said.

“If we actually practice with Youth armor,” said Luke's brother Trey.

“If I finish our garb by then,” said Cori.

We all looked at each other and burst out laughing. “I love you guys!” I said through my own laughter.

“Seriously,” said Cori after we'd calmed down, “are we really going to try to make it to Champion's Tourney?”

It was a good question. The Champion Tournament for the Barony of Ruantallan—the local branch of the Medieval history group we'd joined—was to be held way down outside of Halifax, which was close to two hundred miles away. Trey's parents still didn't want him driving much further than Dundee and none of the rest of us had our permits yet, let alone our licenses. In theory, we could hop on our bicycles and ride there, but even driving would take a good two and a half hours. It would take at least two whole days by bike! I despised the idea of bicycling much further than Dundee and that was only five miles up the road. I knew this, I'd paddled a canoe that far, towing a water-filled row-boat with Mom inside just last June. Then there was the issue of food and clothing, not to mention the still-fickle spring weather.

Furthermore, Trey was right about the armor. Theoretically, Youth armored combatants were, under SCA rules, not allowed to fight in full armor or wield rattan unless they were sixteen and had written permission from their parents. First of all, I was still too young. Second, Dad was even less inclined to let me fight in full armor than he'd been to let me start dating. So theoretically, none of us was supposed to be in full armor.

But we'd done it anyway on the “logic” that one never knew when something like the Zombie Apocalypse would strike. Trey, Luke, and I all had full armor with all the required protection, and standard twelve-gauge steel helms. We'd gone all-out, really. Everyone who'd seen it swore it could stand up in a real-life sword-and-shield fight.

Trey had gone Roman with banded plate armor, a convex, rectangular shield, and hinged cheek guards on his helm. Luke and I, however, had drifted toward Norse, with round shields, typically Norse helms, and boiled leather scale armor, though we'd both been working on suits of stainless steel scale maille. I'd even finished all the scales and had had them heat-treated to a blue-green color that nearly matched my own tail.

All four of us, and my parents, found that last bit rather appropriate, given my, Mom's, and Luke's secret mer-identities. The irony wasn't lost on me, considering I hadn't wanted to have anything to do with being a mermaid when I'd first found out about it less than a year ago. I'd slowly moved through a grudging acceptance and had eventually come to embrace that part of myself. Which felt really good, actually.

I hung the pouch containing the things that used to go in my purse onto my belt using a tidy larks-head knot. Made of seal skin, it had been a Christmas gift from Luke's younger sister Petra. The girl had done a really good job sewing it—though I still didn't want to know what she'd used for the “thread”--but I'd had to make a few modifications in the tanning department to make it usable and durable on land. I picked up my rattan sword and shield off the picnic table next to me. “I don't know about you guys,” I said, “but I'm ready for lunch. This heavy combat stuff sure works up an appetite!”

The others nodded in agreement. “Yeah,” said Cori, “I get exhausted just watching you!”

“Oh, Cori,” I laughed, “you're hilarious! What would I ever do without you?”

“Be bored and single?”

Luke and I looked at each other. Cori was probably right. Without her constantly pushing me to get out of my comfort zone, I'd still be Jade Baxter the Dateless Wonder. Not to mention the countless other things she'd managed to convince me to do. Sure, a lot of the others had been imposed upon me by circumstances, but Cori still did a great job of coercing me into doing things that, for any number of reasons, I never would have even thought about trying.

I shrugged. Luke smiled that adorable curvy-lipped smile of his that always made my heart flutter. I smiled back.

“You two are just too cute,” said Cori.

“So are you,” I said as she took Trey's proffered arm.

The four of us walked up the gentle, partially forested slope of Battery Provincial Park, the boughs of the spruces hanging overhead. I could almost hear their sighs of relief after being released from the winter snows. Goodness knew I was ready for winter to be well and truly over. Shoveling snow off of one's driveway was deceptively hard work! Not that we were necessarily done with snow. It could always fly any time clear into May. It still clung to the surrounding hills, but most of what was on the ground in and around Port Toulouse had been gone for a couple of weeks and most of the visible part of Talisman Lake was ice-free. If spring wasn't here, it was at least close enough to smell.

We'd been holding our own daily fighter practice at the park during Spring Break and on some weekends. That was in addition to the weekly practice Thursday evenings that the other Ruantallans in the area attended. The four of us showed up to that as well when we could.

Not that there were many other Scadians in the area anyway. I could almost count on one hand the number of other people who went to fighter practice. Some days, Trey, Luke, and I practically doubled the numbers. Which was the leading theory on how we got away with getting into full armor in the first place. Besides, how were we going to learn to fight properly?

Non-combatants showed up to practice, too. Most of them spent their time watching, helping the fighters with their armor, or just socializing. Which was what Cori usually did when she wasn't keeping an eye on Reese and Serena on those rare days they joined us ashore. We'd managed to suck Chelse Becker into it and had even succeeded in prying her off of her iPhone. That was a miracle in and of itself. A REAL miracle, though, would be keeping her off of it. But that would require her phone going kaput, or Port Toulouse permanently losing cell reception. Which reminded me...

“Hey, does anyone know if there's been a bid for War Camp yet?” I asked as we reached the graveled shoulder of Grenville Street.

“I'm on it,” said Cori as she dug into her felted satchel to produce her own phone. She switched it on and poked at the screen. A minute later, she shook her head. “Not yet.”

I exhaled. “Nuts.”

“It's not until July,” said Cori, a touch of exasperation in her voice.

“Yeah, I know. But it would really help if someone held things closer than Halifax.”

“And there's not much of a branch here,” said Trey, “so it's not like _we_ can put in a bid.”

“Don't we have the numbers?” I asked. “I mean, to form an Incipient Shire, or at least a Canton?”

“Technically,” said Trey, “but I don't get the impression that there are enough people to hold all the required offices. And the four of us aren't old enough.”

I snorted. “Yeah. And Dad thinks all this Medieval stuff's taking too much time away from my studies at it is.”

“At least it's studying history,” said Cori helpfully.

I chuckled. “That's why he lets me do it at all.”

She shrugged. “I know. At least your mom's supportive. Pretty cool, though, eh?”

“Maybe we'll get there someday,” said Luke hopefully.

“In the meantime,” said Cori, “who wants a Bridget Burger?”

My stomach growled in response.

“Should we take that as a yes?” Luke teased.

“Har, har,” I said, cocking my hips slightly in a gesture of mock defiance.

“Oh, come on,” said Cori, “you know we love you!”

“Besides,” said Trey, “we've been doing melee.”

“Ooph!” I said. “For, like, an hour straight!”

Cori looked toward the bridge over the Port Toulouse Canal, then looked back at us, a mischievous grin spread across her face. “I have an idea,” she said.

“Like what?” I asked, half-fearing the answer.

Cori began to sing a familiar song to the tune of “Waltzing Mathilda.” The rest of us quickly joined in.

“Freaking the Mundanes, freaking the Mundanes, you'll go a-freaking the Mundanes with me  
“As we walk down the street, dressed in all our funny clothes  
“You'll go a-freaking the Mundanes with me.”

We laughed. “You're not really thinking what I think you're thinking, are you?” I asked.

Trey spun his helm around and slid it onto his head, carefully fastening the chin strap. “Yup,” he said. Luke and I looked at each other, then followed suit.

Cori began to jog slowly toward downtown. Hefting our shields and holding our rattan “swords” in our hands, the rest of us jogged after her, our armor clanking loudly.

We must have been a sight to see, with Cori in front and the rest of us looking like an armed escort. Soon Trey broke out in a march that sounded suspiciously like one of those Army Boot-Camp chants:

“Left! Left! Left, right, left!”  
“Axes flash and broadsword swing!”  
Luke and I echoed each line.  
“Shining armor's piercing ring!  
“Horses run with the polished shield!  
“Fight those bastards 'till they yield!  
“Midnight mare and blood-red roan!  
“Fight to keep this land your own!  
“Sound the horn and call the cry!  
“How many of them can we make die?  
“Left! Left! Left, right, left!”

We went on with the rest of the song-turned-marching-chant as we jogged. Our footsteps changed pitch as we clomped across the metal grating of the draw-bridge that spanned the canal, its swivel point anchored on the western shore. Grenville Street turned into Main Street as the roadbed once again became pavement.

Cheery white, purple, and yellow crocuses bloomed in small garden beds, window boxes, and various planters. Early daffodils and tulips would follow in a couple of weeks. It wouldn't be long before the wild pasque-flowers would raise their large, purple flowers from the verge along the canal and most open places to the south and east of it.

Our chant came to a close and our clanking quieted as we came to a halt in front of Bridget's Diner.

“Hey,” I said, breathing heavily, “I'm not...out of breath...much!” It was true...sort of. If I'd tried that a year ago, I'd have been wheezing like a wounded walrus and staggering like a drunk Scotsman long before we'd have reached the canal. And the southern end of the bridge was barely a hundred yards from the park entrance as it was.

Luke pounded me on my armored back with a gauntleted hand and grinned at me as Trey opened the door for Cori. She glided gracefully into the eatery, the rest of us clanking behind her. All heads turned.

Bridget walked up to us. “So,” she said with a twinkle in her eye, “what'll it be?”

“Meat!” Luke declared loudly.

Bridged smiled. “And how would you like your meat, Mister Viking?”

“Cooked!” he said confidently.

Bridget tipped her head back and laughed, the rest of us joining her, the other patrons not far behind.

I leaned over to Luke and switched to my mer-voice. You've been dying to do that, haven't you? I asked in the ringing tones we mers used to communicate.

You have no idea, he rang back.

Bridget grinned and winked at us. I winked back. Like me and Luke, Bridget was also a mer, so she alone understood what Luke and I were saying. Though I hadn't known about her...um...mer-ness until early last September when the Mermish Council just offshore had invoked what they called Tidal Law. The whole thing had been a real mess and had culminated in my being instrumental in staging a submarine uprising.

“So, the usual?” she asked in English once her other customers had gone back to their own affairs.

“The usual,” I said. My “usual” was a Bridget Burger with all the toppings an incipient woman such as myself could want and as much cole-slaw as the law would allow. The funny thing was, I'd been a waffle fry girl for years. They had been among the many things that had given me my “pleasantly plump personality,” as Gran put it. But recently, and for whatever reason, I'd been craving whatever it was Bridget put in her slaw. I made a mental note to ask her about it.

“The same,” said Luke, Trey, and Cori. “But waffle fries for us,” added the guys. One nice thing about having a boyfriend was that I could get my waffle fry fix by snitching a few of Luke's.

“You got it!” said Bridget. She waved us toward our usual booth, which was unoccupied.

That wasn't that surprising for mid-March. The summer tourists wouldn't begin to arrive until May and even then, they'd only trickle into town until late June when most schools had let out for the summer. We'd also arrived toward the end of what passed for the lunch rush in our sleepy seaside town.

We hung our shields on the sturdy coat hooks, slid our “swords” into the umbrella stand by the door and hung our helms on the hat rack. That last bit was a challenge. Even one of our helms was far heavier than the total weight of all other hats that could possibly have been simultaneously hung on the rack, even if all those hats were sopping wet. The balancing act was tricky and I even found myself digging into what I'd been learning in Physics class. Wow, a practical, real-world application for stuff they taught us in school! Who knew?

We slid awkwardly into our seats. I was immediately thankful we'd been paying attention to mobility when putting together our armor, making sure we had a full range of motion. Sure, we weren't expecting to ever have to do more than fight in tourneys and wars. And while all of that was admittedly mock combat, it somehow helped us get into the spirit of the thing if our armor could theoretically be used in an actual battle. Yeah, like that was ever going to happen. But it was fun anyway and, as Dad was ever so fond of pointing out to me, educational.

“So,” said Cori, “I've been thinking.”

“Oh, dear,” I said. “Look out!”

Cori smiled her “very funny, Jade” smile. “When the Chamberlains get back from New York, I want to run my new idea by Missus Chamberlain.”

“What new idea?” I asked.

“A sort of...Renaissance renaissance.”

I laughed.

“What?”

“As I recall, just last May, you were talking about a sort of skater look.”

Cori giggled ruefully. “And you said...how'd you put it...'you could totally pull it off with those killer moves?'” We all chuckled at that. Those had been...some interesting days. “Yeah, well,” she continued, “somehow it just wasn't coming together. Even Missus Chamberlain thought so. And you know how she lives and breathes fashion.”

I laughed again, remembering—with a slight pang of lingering guilt—how I'd essentially barged into Mrs. Chamberlain's boutique last September and all but demanded she accept Cori for her Mentorship. I'd been adding two and two and getting five and the whole thing had, of course, revolved around multiple misunderstandings. I'd still felt like an idiot. But things had calmed down, those problems resolved, and I'd even made peace with the Chamberlains' daughter Lainey.

I waved a dismissive hand at Cori's raised eyebrow. “Just remembering last fall's...thing with the Chamberlains.”

“Besides,” said Cori, apparently reading between the lines, “it wasn't different enough from the whole Hipster thing anyway. Seriously, what do you all think I've been doing while the three of you have been bashing on each other with those sticks of yours?” She pulled a sheaf of papers out of her satchel and spread them out on the table. “What do you think?”

I looked from one drawing to another. “Cori, you're a genius,” I said.

Cori smiled and then inclined her head toward Trey and Luke. They both cleared their throats.

“As long as it's Period,” said Trey.

“Can you make it so it's wearable underwater?” Luke asked.

Cori rolled her eyes. “Men,” she said.

“I thought you...we...didn't wear clothes underwater,” I said quietly, mainly to Luke.

“We don't,” he replied, “apparently.” He'd only found out about his own mer-identity not long before I'd discovered my own. That made us both kind of new when it came to being mers. We still thought of ourselves primarily as landlubbers. While we'd come to accept and embrace our mer-selves, it still felt a little weird from time to time.

“You do want to stand out from the...um...school, don't you?” said Trey.

We groaned.

“Pod,” Luke corrected. Trey rolled his eyes.

Bridged chose that moment to arrive with our food.

“That was fast,” said Trey.

Bridget smiled. “I had a premonition.”

I raised an eyebrow. _You're not psychic, too, are you?_ I rang.

Bridget's smile widened as she set our plates on the table. _No_ , she rang back, _I just heard you coming. Your armor's noisy._

Luke and I chuckled and Trey and Cori just looked at us. I saw in my peripheral vision a couple of people check their cell phones while one wiggled a finger in their ear. I almost didn't notice that sort of thing anymore.

 _So_ , I continued, _what's your secret cole slaw ingredient anyway?_

 _It's a secret._ Bridged paused. _Okay, but promise you won't freak out?_

 _Sure_ , I replied.

_It's kelp._

I blinked for several seconds, then eyed my plate suspiciously. _Kelp? As in, seaweed?_

_Yup. Surely you don't think humans are the only ones who have to tell their children to eat their vegetables._

_Well, sure, but...kelp?_

_What did you think we grew underwater? Besides, you like it._

Bridget was right. I'd joined Luke on several of his submarine visitations to his mer-family and had hung out with Reese and Serena out in the bay a few times. I'd initially been taken aback, of course, but I'd been slowly developing a taste for seafood mer-style. It didn't hurt that I'd made myself politely accept whatever Luke's mer-family served, especially since everything was eaten raw.

 _Huh_ , I rang back. _Who knew? It certainly gives this..._ I took a forkful and chewed. It really was quite delicious. _...a certain zing. When did you change the recipe?_ I didn't remember Bridget's slaw tasting like this until recently.

 _October_ , she replied. _Not long after the Tidal Law incident._

 _Ah. Well, it's delicious._ I turned to Luke and offered him a fork-full. _You should try it_ , I rang to him.

 _Kelp, you say?_ he rang to Bridget.

_Yup._

_Huh._ He took a bite and chewed it pensively. _You know, that's really not bad at all._

 _Yeah_ , I rang, _you should totally create a line of sushi options._

 _Who do you think created sushi?_ Bridget rang.

I raised an eyebrow. _Oh, don't tell me Japanese mers introduced it._

_So the story goes._

I smiled. _Doesn't surprise me_. I noticed people starting to look our direction, as if they were beginning to pinpoint the source of the ringing sound. _Shall I...um...ring you later?_ I asked.

“Sure thing,” said Bridget, returning to her human voice.

“And thanks,” I said.

“You're welcome.” Bridget stood up and continued on to another table.

“You know,” said Cori quietly, “sometimes I hate it when you guys do that.”

I cringed. It seemed like I was forgetting more and more that some of my friends weren't mers. “Because...it makes you feel left out?” I probed.

Cori nodded. “And it's annoying.”

“Well,” I said, taking a small bite of slaw to sate my growling stomach, “I'm totally with you on the annoying part.”

“Besides,” added Luke quietly, “aren't we trying to keep a low profile?”

I looked at my own vambraced arm, then fingered one of Luke's hard leather scales. “Low profile?”

We all laughed.

“You know what I mean,” he said.

He was right. If we were to keep our mer-identities a secret, I really needed to be more careful about when and where I expressed that part of myself. Who knew having a secret identity could be so confusing? Though it kind of made me feel like a superhero, which I found strangely empowering.

Conversation died down abruptly as we tucked into our food. Okay, so maybe tore into it like a pack of rabid timber wolves would have been more accurate. Or maybe in my and Luke's case, a school of frenzied mako sharks.

I forced myself to slow down and actually chew. Maybe sharks and whales could get away with eating things more or less whole, but mer-girls...not so much. It somehow made the food taste better, though and I was thankful for that. It was much more satisfying than simply inhaling it, which I totally felt like doing. I was also thankful for the few waffle fries I snitched from Luke's plate. I'd stopped being surreptitious about it months ago. He'd even started smiling slightly whenever he noticed. Crazy guy.

When we were done, I politely wiped my mouth. I might have been a mermaid and wearing armor, but that didn't mean I had to be uncouth. Besides, I'd come to fancy myself a lady and like it or not, ladies had manners. And a lady would settle for no less than a gentleman for a boyfriend. I nudged Luke and nodded to his napkin. He sighed slightly, then took the hint. What was it about food--and armor--that turned guys into Conan the Barbarian?

We paid our bills, leaving generous tips for Bridget. That woman worked her tail off—pun not intended—especially during Spring Break.

On the way to the door, I caught Bridget's eye. She grinned at me in what seemed to be a peculiar way. What was that about? Nosy me, I wanted to ask, but she was helping another customer and I didn't think it prudent to ring across the room. Besides, it would have been the same as yelling and that would have been bad manners. I grumbled inwardly. It seemed the SCA had finished what my parents had started. Oh, well, I was probably a better person for it. Good manners were likely to come in handy someday anyway.

We clunked back outside. The sun had sunk a little more. Though the days grew noticeably longer and the ground was mostly clear of snow, the air still held the crisp chill of a winter that just wouldn't die.

“Well,” said Cori, “now what?”

“I...really should go study.” I almost couldn't believe those words had just come out of my mouth. My friends stared at me. “What? I don't know about you, but I do _not_ want a repeat of last year.”

“But last year,” said Cori, “you were distracted by finding your mom.”

“I know,” I said, “but I still let my grades slip and it landed me back in grade eight.”

“Did not,” said Luke.

“More or less,” I insisted.

“But it all worked out, didn't it?” said Cori.

“I guess,” I said.

“Don't worry,” said Luke. “You're right where you need to be.”

“Thanks,” I said, meaning it. “I really have the best friends in the whole world. Anyway,” I continued, ignoring their havering, “what else am I going to do between getting out of armor and our little date on the beach?”

Luke shrugged, his armor clinking slightly as he did so. We hugged each other and went our separate ways.

My mind wandered all over the place as I clunked back along Main Street, over the bridge, past Battery Provincial Park, and eventually back home. Ah, home! It sure was comforting.

Opening the front door was unexpectedly difficult. Who knew gauntlets could turn something as simple as twisting a doorknob into such a challenge? I made a mental note about that. Maybe doing certain things in armor could help me better understand the physically-challenged.

I clunked into the entry and nudged the door closed with my foot. Huh. A year ago, not only would I have accidentally slammed it, I'd have also spun around and fallen on my butt. That boded well.

I'd clunked halfway across the living room when a familiar voice stopped me in my tracks.

“Young lady,” said Mom sternly, “what's our rule about armor in the house?”

I looked toward the kitchen. Mom sat at the table, papers strewn on its surface, cradling a mug of what was probably one of the herbal teas. She'd switched from coffee a couple of months ago. I was almost used to her hair being short and dark—part of her cover as my aunt from somewhere in the South Pacific--rather than long and dirty-blonde like I remembered it being all my life. I could live with that.

I smiled, walked over to Mom, and hugged her.

“Ow,” she said.

“Oh,” I said, pulling back, “did I pinch you? Again?”

Mom nodded. Yeah, I guess she was right. And maybe that was part of the reason for the “no armor in the house” rule. That, and we'd just re-done the hardwood flooring.

I tip-toed to the garage and took off my armor. Those who've never worn a suit of scale maille had no idea how involved it was. One didn't simply strip the way one did out of a T-shirt and jeans. Oh, no. First, I had to unbuckle the leather straps that held my leg plating to a weight belt. Then I unbuckled the other leather straps holding my arm plating at the shoulder. Only then could I shimmy out of the scale maille covering the rest of my body. And _then_ there was hard leather underneath that. Ooph!

After a good ten minutes, I'd climbed out of my armor and hung it all on its stand in the corner of the garage. I pushed my sweaty coif off my head, letting some of my unruly copper curls spring out around my face. I peeled off the used combat boots I'd bought second-hand and padded back into the house in my stocking feet.

I walked over to Mom, who smiled at me. _Better?_ I rang.

 _Much_ , she replied, her smile broadening.

I wrapped my arms around her and hugged her. She patted my arm. I inhaled, smelling her shampoo mixed with my own sweat. I waited a moment, then exhaled.

 _What is it?_ Mom asked.

 _I'm just...happy_ , I rang back. _Really, really happy. I'm not sure you know how much life sucked for me last May right before I saw you in the lake. That was the lowest I've ever been. Things got way better since then. You and Dad got married. I have a cute boyfriend. I'm doing better in school. My aim's improving. Winter's about over. And on top of it all, I just feel good and I'm in a good mood._

Mom giggled softly. _And I don't think_ you _know how good it feels to hear you say that._

I giggled too, but mine came out half snorted. Real ladylike, Jade. _But_ , I rang, _this whole mermaid thing is still a little...weird._

_I still won't blame you if you choose to abandon it._

I considered that for a moment. _No_ , I replied, _I'm in it too deep._

_Too deep?_

_Did I just inadvertently use mermish humor?_

Mom nodded and we both laughed out loud.

“I love you, Mom!” I said.

“I love you, too, Jade.”

“I should probably wash up and study a little. Don't want to let those grades slip, eh?”

Mom nodded, then made a slight shooing gesture. “Oh, and Jade?” she said when I'd gone halfway down the hall.

“Yes?” I said hesitantly.

“You know we don't have to ring to each other if you don't want to.”

“I know. I've just...well...I'm kind of used to it. To tell the truth, I'm kind of used to being a mermaid. The searing tail pain still sucks, but even that's not as bad as it used to be.” It was true. Sprouting a tail actually felt good. Having my tail turn back into legs, on the other hand, hurt like hell. The first couple of times it had happened, it had hurt so much, I'd thrown up and then passed out.

Mom turned back to her papers and I retreated to my room, grabbed a change of clean clothes and ducked into the bathroom. Nuts. I was still wearing my gambeson! I darted back out, down the hall and toward the garage. “Sorry,” said said as I rushed past Mom. “Forgot something.”

I ducked back into the garage, stripped off my gambeson, and hung it on its peg next to my armor rack. The chilly air in the room pricked at my damp skin. It was amazing the effect sweat could have on one's decolletage. Speaking of which...I glanced down. Was it my imagination, or was I really developing dignified boobs? Huh. Well, Mom did say that it wasn't like I was going to go to bed as Laura Ingalls Wilder and wake up the next morning looking like one of the Spice Girls.

I darted back out of the garage...dang, it still felt like winter in there...skidded slightly as I closed the door behind me, then trotted for the bathroom.

“Please don't run, Jade,” called Mom.

“Sorry,” I said as I slowed down.

Once in the bathroom, I stripped off my pants and T-shirt, peeled off my sports bra, then turned to examine myself in the mirror. I didn't know what I was expecting to see. Well, other than the usual copper curls and pudgy me. It was the same image I'd been viewing for years...more or less.

Hmm, I said to myself. Was it my imagination, or was I really...filling out, as they say? I remembered last May, the day I'd had my first period, squishing my arms together a little to try to give myself a little cleavage. And was I actually developing something resembling curves? I peered at my reflection. Huh. Mom and Gran weren't exactly Dolly Parton or Marilyn Monroe themselves, but maybe there was hope for me yet.

I showered all the sweat off myself, being careful as usual not to inhale any water. Tails weren't really made for holding a person upright and I really didn't want to have to try to explain _that_ to the paramedics who would surely have been called in response to whatever injuries I'd have sustained after slipping around in the tub like a fresh trout.

As I dried off, having again averted any unintentional tail-sprouting, I mused a little more on my secret identity. All in all, having one was kind of cool. Sure, it could be a literal pain sometimes. But all things considered, I really didn't mind anymore.

I rushed my towel-wrapped self across to my room, tossing my dirty clothes into the hamper on the way, and re-vested myself in comfortable sweats and a plain grey T-shirt. So I wasn't going to win any fashion shows, but I did have studying to do. The house was still a tad on the chilly side, especially with my still-damp hair, and I certainly didn't need any environmental distractions.

* * *

As usually happens while beating my head against several different subjects, I completely lost track of time. I suppose I made some progress. One has to wonder, though, in an age of digital this and inter-connected that, surely they'd have gotten a _few_ things right in the history texts. Sheesh! Those who don't study their history are doomed to repeat it...inaccurately!

What alerted me to the passing of time were the voices floating down the hall. Dad was home! I glanced at the window. That was funny...it looked a bit too light out yet. He was home early. But why? Oh, well, I was on a need-to-know basis anyway.

Speaking of needing to know things, I had more history text calling my name. I wondered if they'd let me put the _real_ answer on the exam. I mean, didn't they do that sort of thing at university? You presented your data and then defended it in front of the experts, right?

“Jade?” It was Dad.

“Yeah?” I called back over my shoulder.

“Would you come to the living room, please?”

Erg. Now what? More family bonding time? I smiled. The thought gave me warm fuzzies. I remembered Luke rolling his eyes about that after he'd returned from his sea voyage last year...the one during which he'd learned about being a mer. I also still remembered, in vivid detail, the contrast between what my life had become and what it had been a year ago. Yeah, I liked family bonding time. Still, I had studying to do. Darned ambitious responsibility...or was it responsible ambition?

I padded down the hall and found Mom and Dad sitting on the couch. Dad had taken off his tie, but was otherwise still in his office clothes, one arm around Mom's shoulder. They both bore serious expressions. That was never a good sign. It usually meant they needed to talk to me about something serious. But I'd gladly take a serious discussion involving Mom over life without her any day.

Dad nodded to the easy chair by the end of the coffee table and I took the hint. “What's up?” I asked as innocently as I could.

“First of all,” Dad began, “I got you something.” He nodded to the long package resting on the table. I guess I'd been too pre-occupied with, well, everything to notice. Would that ever improve, or would I always be a bit distrac...squirrel!

“Oh,” I said. I didn't have to fake my surprise. Neither of my parents have ever been that big on out-of-season gifts. Christmas was long gone and my birthday wasn't until the end of June, a good three and a half months away. “You shouldn't have.” I reached out and hefted the package. It was light, whatever it was, and four feet long.

“It's...a sort of really early birthday present,” said Mom.

I glanced up with a cocked eyebrow. “Early birthday present?” I asked dubiously.

“Just open it.”

I began to unwrap the nondescript brown paper, which didn't take long. My eyes widened. Inside was a recurve bow, a gorgeous one at that. My breath momentarily caught in my throat. “No, really,” I said, “you really shouldn't have.” Why did I say things like that? Of course I was thrilled!

“We know how much you've been complaining about your light draw,” said Dad. “And I didn't see the point of letting your progress stall.”

I picked it up and strung it, which was no mean feat. Dad wasn't joking about my upping the ante, as it were! Then I tested the draw. Whew! That'll get those upper-body muscles pumping! “Wow,” I said. “Just... _wow_!” I knew from my studies what it took to make a bow like that. I unstrung it, laid it back on the table and gave Mom and Dad each a big hug. “Thank-you!” I gushed.

“We, um,” said Dad, “we have something else we need to discuss with you.”

My stomach sank. Now what? I sat down slowly. “What sort of something?” I asked carefully.

Mom and Dad looked at each other, then back at me.

“Your mother and I...we...we're...”

I sat bolt upright in my chair and felt my eyes widen. “You're...you're not...”

They both nodded.

Before I realized what I was doing, I launched back to my feet. “ _NO!_ ” I screeched.

“What?” said Mom.

“You...you just got married!”

“We know,” said Dad. “Believe me, it's...not like we planned it.”

“Not like you planned it? Wha...no. I won't let you!”

“It's...not like we can take it back, you know,” said Mom.

I crossed my arms defiantly. “You're not divorcing and that's final!” I declared.

Mom and Dad blinked. “Um...” said Dad.

Mom tittered.

“What's so funny?” I growled. “Was that...” I pointed at the bow. “...to butter me up for this?”

“Jade, honey,” said Mom. “Please sit down. It's nothing like that.”

I paused for a moment, then slowly settled myself onto the edge of the chair cushion. “You're...not separating?”

“Of course not!”

“Your mother and I love each other very much,” said Dad. “You know that better than anyone.” He exhaled. “You're...going to have a sibling.”

I blinked.

“I'm pregnant,” said Mom.

My brain crashed into itself, each half like a train, one leaving Halifax at three forty-five traveling at sixty-eight kilometers an hour and the other leaving Ottawa at six fifteen traveling at seventy-eight kilometers...ah, fiddlesticks.

I must have done...I don't know what, because the next thing I knew, the seat cushion scraped up my back and my butt hit the floor.

“Jade!” said Dad. “Are you okay?”

“Uh,” I managed to say, “yeah. I'm fine.” Actually, I was. I picked myself up and settled my butt a little more firmly onto the chair. “Sorry. It's just...” I sighed. I felt like a complete idiot. Open mouth, insert fin...both lobes! “...totally not expecting...are you really?!”

“We're kind of surprised, too.”

Surprised didn't even begin to cover it—not for me, anyway.

“I'm not,” said Mom.

“Huh?”

“Your father's...an enthusiastic lover and...”

“Gah!” I blurted. “Thanks, Mom. I really didn't need that mental image.” What was it about the idea of one's own parents having sex that sent their kids into such a tizzy? I mean, it's not like it wasn't obvious they...ah, nuts. Who was I kidding? My dad was a geek who'd clearly scored at least twice. I really should get used to that and stop being such a prude about the whole thing. “Sorry,” I added. “I've been having kind of a weird...um...life.”

Mom and Dad both burst out laughing. “Oh, Jade,” said Dad, “you're hilarious.”

“Thanks...I think.” Actually, I wasn't entirely sure _what_ to think. It must have showed on my face.

“Jade?” Mom asked. “Are you sure you're okay with this?”

Was I okay with it? I guess I should be happy. But it wasn't as though I had much of a choice in the matter. My parents were having another baby and that was that. “It's just...” My mouth was about to take off without me and there was nothing I could do to stop it. “...whenever life starts going well, something always happens to blow it up.”

Mom and Dad both cocked their heads...toward each other. It was so cute, I couldn't help but smile.

“What do you mean?” Dad asked.

I took a deep breath, held it, then let it back out, hoping that would give my brain enough time to catch up to my mouth. “Well...there was two summers ago. When you...” I nodded to Mom. “...disappeared. Then the following May, when I thought things were looking up, there was the first period thing and the Mermaid thing. Then we'd just gotten you and Luke back on land when the Bell Incident happened. And now that things are going better than ever...something's going to hit the fan, I just know it.”

Mom said nothing, just held out an arm. That was all the invitation I needed to switch spots. I sat down next to her and just leaned. Somehow, just doing that made me feel tons better. Not that I wasn't still convinced that another life upheaval was just around the corner, but at least I was finding my calm center.

“So,” I said after a few moments, “how's that all going to work? I mean, aside from the obvious? I mean, Michaela Baxter is still officially deceased. What's our cover story for...” I gestured at Mom's abdomen. “I assume you two've thought of that, right?”

Dad shrugged. “Same as for our wedding.”

Right. The official cover for Mom was that she was my Tanti Natasha from the South Pacific. To support that, Mom had, right after returning to land last summer, cut her hair, died it dark brown, and started wearing colored contacts lenses. Furthermore, Dad had married her because I needed a mother figure—which was true—and because “Tanti Natasha” reminded Dad of Mom. That last bit was somewhat relative. Everyone apparently went with it because their wedding and honeymoon had occurred a year and a half after Mom's supposed drowning in Talisman Lake.

That wasn't necessarily enough time for a man to get over his wife, but certainly a sufficient mourning period—or so I'd been told. Me, I just went with it. I was just happy as a clam to have Mom back and see my parents happy. Seeing Dad so down in the dumps for nearly a year hurt almost as much as my own pain from “losing” Mom.

“ _Please_ tell me I can share _this_ with Cori,” I pleaded.

I remembered how Dad had downright forbid me from saying anything about my newfound mermaidism to anyone practically the same day I'd found out about it. He'd been terrified that some guys in black suits would show up to escort me to some secret government lab somewhere and that some other guys in white lab coats would spend every waking moment running experiments on me for the rest of my life. But that had been back when I'd thought only Dad and I knew about mermaids and before we'd known Mom was still alive.

“Of course you can,” said Mom. I could hear the concern in her voice. I found it reassuring.

“Your mother and I talked about that, too,” said Dad. “Having a baby's a perfectly natural thing.”

I sat up slightly and cocked an eyebrow at him. I hoped he'd correctly interpret that as a “Dad, you're digging yourself into a hole,” look.

“Not that being a mermaid isn't,” he said. He ran his hand through his hair, his default stress gesture. “It's just that most people don't know it.”

Nice save...maybe.

“Oh!” I said, sitting up. “Are we still meeting the Martins this evening?” I flinched inwardly. Abrupt subject changes were apparently one of my useless specialties.

The whole gang—meaning me, Mom, Dad, Gran, Cori, the Martins, Bridget, Coach Laurena, Shaky Eddie, Chelse Becker, and the Chamberlains-minus-Lainey-and-Mrs., which were pretty much everyone who knew about our mer-secret—were meeting at the beach to give Luke a sort of a send-off. He was going off to spend the rest of Spring Break with his mer-family.

Mom smiled. “Of course!” She sounded a bit dismayed that I'd had to ask. “Besides, Luke's practically family.”

Huh? “Am I...related to my boyfriend?” I asked cautiously. After finding out that the former Dame Council of Merland--or whatever mers called our undersea realm--was my maternal grandmother, not to mention the whole mermaid thing in general, it really wouldn't have surprised me.

Mom just laughed.

“No, really. I'm not dating my cousin or anything, am I?”

Mom and Dad looked at each other, but said nothing.

“Uh...guys? You're making me nervous. And I'm starting to feel like I'm on Jeff Foxworthy.”

Mom and Dad looked at me like I was nuts.

“You might be a Redneck Mermaid if...?” I prompted.

They shook their heads slowly.

“Um...Google it,” I said after a moment. I knew Dad was the undeclared King of Googling.

“What we're trying to say,” said Mom, “is that...well, we think Luke's good for you. And we don't think we'd mind having him as a son-in-law some day.”

I blinked. Did Mom just say what I thought she'd said? Were my parents actually giving their blessing on a marriage that was still very much hypothetical at best? Sure, like every girl, I'd dreamed about my wedding. But, in typical girlish fashion, the groom and the marriage had always been peripheral.

I supposed that just being aware of all that was yet another sign of maturity. Ugh. I wasn't sure I was ready to be mature. Besides, it was _way_ too soon for any of that. Luke and I hadn't even been dating a full year and both of us were still in secondary school. And who knew what would happen after graduation?

“Um...thanks...I guess?” I said. I wasn't sure if Mom was teasing me, or if she really meant it. Probably both.

Dad snickered. I glanced over to see him peering into his phone. Wow, that guy was fast!

“If your porch collapses and kills more than three dogs,” Dad read aloud, “you might be a Redneck.” Dad kept reading Redneck jokes for what felt like another five minutes or so.

I put a hand to my forehead and groaned. “I've created a monster,” I muttered.

“On a more serious note,” said Mom, “family doesn't necessarily have to be related...by blood or by marriage. Luke's just about family, regardless of whether or not he's related or whether or not the two of you ever marry each other.”

Mom sure knew how to give me the warm fuzzies. I smiled. “Mom, you're awesome,” I said. I glanced at Dad. “Dad, you're awesome, too.” I stepped around the table and gave both of them big hugs. All was right with my world.

* * *

The sound of moderate ocean surf made for pleasant background noise. I strode across the sand, my bare feet partly sinking into it, knees perpetually flexed in response to the resistance. Walking on sand sure was a lot more work than it looked. We'd occasionally held fighter practice on the beach and boy, was that a work-out!

I was aware of Mom and Dad walking to one side, Cori on my other, and Gran stalking along behind me. It somehow felt like that power walk often seen on TV shows. That made me smile. Who knew I'd eventually be in a power walk?

Luke and the other Martins stood near the waterline. He looked up, caught my eye, and winked. Cori giggled. “What?” I asked her.

“Tell ya later,” she replied.

I shrugged. I made a mental note to take her up on that. In the meantime, I had a boyfriend to return to the ocean. Somehow, that thought wasn't remotely as weird as it would have been a year ago.

My feet hit the abrupt transition between the soft, drier sand and the firm, damp, compacted stuff nearer to the water. I broke into a run, my feet making dull splutting sounds. I slammed into Luke and wrapped my arms around his torso as he let out an audible “oof!”

I looked up at him. “Sorry,” I said with a grimace.

“For what?” he asked, a twinkle in his eye. It sounded rhetorical, so I just grinned back and batted my eyelashes.

I glanced over my shoulder as Mom, Dad, and Cori pounded to a stop in front of us, Gran still plodding purposefully in my direction. My parents were noticeably out of breath, Dad especially.

I suddenly noticed Dad's distended midsection as it bounced in front of him. I restrained a grimace. Been there, done that. But why was I just now seeing it? I mean, I'd grown up with the guy. I guess he was in his forties, though. And I did inherit my, as Gran was fond of putting it, pleasantly plump personality from his side of the family. I resolved to start dragging him to fighter practice. If I could do it, he easily could.

“So,” I said to Luke, nudging him slightly, “Penelopus,” I teased. It was the name his birth parents had given him, which we'd only learned last September, and that he'd taken as another middle name as well as his SCA persona name. He smiled at me with those cute, curvy lips of his. I really liked those lips. I also really liked that we had such a great inside...well, not joke precisely...secret handshake might have been closer to the truth. It was like I had a portal to a whole different world, one I could share with a dozen other people.

“Yes, Earca?” he said, using my Mediaeval name, and nudged me back. I giggled. Earca was Irish Gaelic for 'salmon.' It figured. Did I mention that I'd fully embraced my mermaid nature?

I gazed into Luke's eyes and he into mine. We stayed like that for what felt like forever, but was probably only thirty seconds or so. Were we actually falling in love? Not just like, but real love? Not that I had much of an idea of how I would recognize it. Luke was my first boyfriend, for crying out loud. I made a mental note to have yet another conversation about that with Mom.

There'd been a time when the thought of having those talks filled my heart with terror. Then after Dad and I had thought Mom had drowned, I'd have given anything to have had those talks. Then when I'd discovered she'd actually been living in Talisman Lake, and subsequently rescued her, eventually helping her regain her legs, I'd grown enough that I'd found myself actually looking forward to those conversations. Naturally, we'd had them and just as naturally, they'd been extremely awkward. But Mom had been patient with me and had gently nudged me out of my shell.

We all migrated to a nearby cluster of driftwood. A fire burned in its center. People pulled up logs and Luke picked up his guitar. I smiled. He plucked a few notes, a familiar tune rising from the instrument. Then Luke began to sing a slow, soulful song...in Scots Gaelic.

“Bi mo leannan geal is alainn  
Le biathran geallaidh thar chaich  
Bi sinn druidhe an smuid an aoibhnis  
An oidhche phosas mo run.”

Cori, Trey, and I joined in the second verse.

“Nam shuidhe cluinntinn ceol a' reitich  
's duilich cur an aghaidh dan  
A' feitheamh son a lamh a mhaireas  
An oidhche phosas mo run, phosas mo run, phosas mo run.”

Luke began to strum, picking up the tempo. Trey grabbed a couple of sticks and began to drum energetically on a log. Their parents joined us all in the chorus.

“Togaidh sinn horo ghealaidh  
Horo ghealaidh horo  
Togaidh sinn horo ghealaidh  
Horo gealaidh horo  
Ghealaidh horo, oh horo  
Ghealigh horo togaigh horo  
Ghealaidh horo, oh horo  
Ghealigh horo togaigh horo

Luke kept the tempo for the remaining two verses.

“Tog glainne mhor na slainte  
Thoir an cearcall chunan lar  
Theid sinn cuiart toabh cuil na gealaich  
An oidhche phosas mo run”

Those of us who know it jumped in with the fourth verse.

“Tha I na seasamh aig a' reitach  
Theid na reultan bun os cionn  
's theid a ghrian air chall gu madainn  
An oidhche phosas mo run, phosas mo run”

Luke's strumming transitioned back to the chorus.

“Togaidh sinn horo ghealaidh  
Horo ghealaidh horo  
Togaidh sinn horo ghealaidh  
Horo gealaidh horo

Trey's drumming intensified as the rest of us repeated the chorus over and over. It really was catchy. By the fourth iteration, everyone was singing along.

Ghealaigh horo, oh horo  
Ghealaidh horo togaidh horo  
Gealaidh horo, oh horo  
Ghealaidh horo togaidh horo!

I must have lost myself because I suddenly noticed I was the only one singing. I abruptly stopped and opened my eyes, which I'd clearly closed at some point. Everyone stared at me. Uh-oh. Nice going, Jade.

“Whoa,” said Trey.

“Uh...sorry,” I said with a cringe.

“For what?” asked Luke.

“For...this?” I pointed at my throat.

“But...that was beautiful.”

I furrowed my brow. “Uh-huh,” I said dubiously.

“No, really.”

“I didn't know you could sing like that,” said Dad.

“Seriously, Dad? I sing in the shower all the time.”

Dad chuckled. “Not like that.”

I looked from face to face. Each one seemed to echo the same thing.

“I think you may have found your calling, honey,” said Mom.

“You...think so?”

Mom nodded.

“Yeah,” said Cori. “How come we never knew you could sing?”

I shrugged.

Luke leaned over. “Feel free to do that any time you want.”

“Future Bardic Champion,” said Trey.

“Um...okay?” I said. That was lame...nice going, Jade.

Luke grinned. “I'm dating an angel.”

I blushed.

“Another?” asked Mrs. Martin quietly.

I was kind of surprised she'd shown. Last spring she'd suffered a string of serious medical issues that had landed her in the hospital several times. She'd improved over the summer, but winter had been very hard on her. Luke and Trey wouldn't show it much, and Mr. Martin even less, but I could tell they were all very worried for her.

“Sure,” said Luke. He moved to strum, then paused, his hand poised over the strings. He looked at me. “Sing that one song.”

I cocked an eyebrow. “Care to...vague that up for me?”

“You know...that one I heard you sing while waiting for me that one day last month.”

“You...heard that?”

Luke nodded. “Uh-huh.”

He was right. Sound tended to travel really well underwater. I sighed. “Well...okay...” I took a deep breath, held it, let it back out, then took in another. I closed my eyes, tipped by head back slightly, and let the music rise from my throat, a clear and haunting melody.

Gair nan tonn gur trom an nuallan  
Seirm an chluais do ghloir  
Dan nam beann gach allt is fuaran  
Siaradh nuas le'd cheol  
'S tu gach latha gun tamh mo bhuaireadh  
D'iargain bhuan gam leon  
'S tu gach oidhche chaoich mo bhruadar  
Gu Thir Nan Og

Without prompting, I continued with the other two verses. The song, back when I'd first heard it, had immediately grabbed me with its haunting melody. When I'd looked up the English translation of the Scots Gaelic lyrics, I'd found several sea-related metaphors. Which I supposed figured. Cori, Luke, Trey, Mom, and Dad had agreed.

I finished the song and opened my eyes. Everyone stared at me...again.

“I think I'm in love,” said Luke.

I'm sure I must have blushed to rival any sunset. “Really?” Nice going, Jade. My boyfriend just about took our relationship to the next level and that was all I could say. But I supposed it would take more than that for him to dump me. Or so I hoped. I reminded myself that Mom was probably right, that it was either going to work or it wasn't and that I shouldn't dwell on minor bungles. Because everyone had those.

Luke nodded. He leaned over and kissed me. It shattered all my thoughts of self-doubt. I was barely aware of Mom and Dad having a brief conversation.

“I really like how he kisses our daughter,” said Mom.

“I'm not sure I do,” said Dad.

“That's because our little girl's growing up.” She lowered her voice slightly. “I don't think you'd like how anyone would kiss her.”

But I was a bit too wrapped up in the moment to dwell on that. Though there was sure to be a discussion about it later. We were interrupted by a ringing sound. All eyes turned toward it.

“Sounds like your, um, ride is here,” I said.

Luke smiled. “Sounds like,” he agreed. He propped his guitar against the log as he stood up.

Luke offered his arm. Taking it, we strolled toward the breakers splashing just a few hundred yards canal-ward from the open ocean. Our families and friends trailed behind us, all chatting animatedly.

 _You know_ , I rang to Luke, _I kind of feel like I have my very own Zombie Apocalypse team._

Luke tipped his head back and laughed. _Oh, Jade_ , he rang, _you're so funny. That's one of the things I love about you._

_Thanks...I think._

_No, I mean it. I really do._

_Well, then, thank-you. But why was that funny?_

Luke shrugged. _I don't know. I guess it just struck my funny bone._

_I'm serious, though. Not about zombies, of course. But if the metaphorical excrement does hit the metaphorical fan, we'd be the team. You know?_

_Do you think it would be_ your _team, though?_

 _Uh...probably not._ I thought back to the Bell Incident. While I'd definitely been part of a Team, sort of, we hadn't exactly been a coordinated, well-oiled machine. In fact, I'd gone off half-cocked. But no matter how you looked at it, I'd never been in charge, so Luke was right...it had never really been _my_ team. But I guess I was okay with that.

“Um, guys?” said Cori. “I realize you're trying to have your alone time in a crowd. And I realize everyone here knows about Mers. But we can still hear you. Some of us even understand you.”

I looked over my shoulder. “And let me guess, it's annoying?”

Cori cringed. “Well...”

“Okay, we'll stop,” I sighed.

“Oh, it's not that bad with all the white noise.”

“Oh.” I glanced at Gran, who seemed to be fiddling with her hearing aid. “Um, Gran?” I called. She looked up. “Sorry. That was me and Luke. Your hearing aid's fine.”

“Actually,” said Bridget, “it wasn't just you.”

“Oh. I...wasn't paying attention.” I should have guessed that the other Mers—Mom, Laurena, Bridget, and Mr. Chamberlain—might have been chatting in Mermish.

“Not a problem, honey.”

The others looked confused, but seemed to be trying to avoid looking like it. A light bulb went on in my head. “I know! What if the rest of you learn Mermish?”

“We've tried,” said Dad.

“Yeah,” said Eddie, “it's not so easy.”

I deflated so much, I'm sure I looked like a flounder.

“No, no,” said Mom, “it's a good idea.”

“Actually,” said Coach Laurena, “it's a great idea.”

“It is?”

“You're a genius,” said Luke.

“I am?”

“Your mother tried to teach me once,” said Dad with a shrug, “but we gave up. We figured it probably wasn't that relevant. But with everything that's happened over the last year...”

“What he means to say,” said Shaky Eddie, “is that maybe us landlubbers should learn to at least understand Mermish.”

“Eddie's right,” said Mr. Chamberlain. He'd returned a few days before the rest of his family to take care of some business. “Mers and humans have kept out of each others' way for generations. But the world's still shrinking. It's only a matter of time before our secret's out. And with the recent...activity...it's best if we have as much control as possible over that inevitability. We need a game plan.”

“I guess you were right,” said Luke.

“About what?” Cori asked.

Luke chuckled. “Jade compared us all to a Zombie Apocalypse team.”

“Well...” I said.

“Nice!” said Trey. He presented his hand, palm out. I took the cue and high-fived him.

“Jade,” said Cori, “you're awesome.”

I smiled and shrugged. I was feeling kind of awesome just then.

The ringing sound from the sea caught our attention. That would have been Reese, Serena, and Luke's mer-family. I really wished I could have joined him. Reese and Serena were friends and I really liked Luke's family, and they me. If they were to become my in-laws some day, I could certainly live with that!

“Well, son,” said Mr. Martin, “it sounds like your escort's here.”

Luke exchanged hugs with everyone, then stripped off his T-shirt and handed it to me. I took it tentatively. I blinked. Luke was giving me his clothes? He'd never done that before. Well, at least all the other times, they'd been in a duffel bag. He wasn't going to give me his...drawers...was he? I wasn't sure I could do that. Definitely _not_ ready for marriage!

Instead, Luke gave me a big hug. The feel of his bare torso made my heart race. Why was it that my boyfriend both excited and embarrassed me at the same time? I'd have to ask Mom about that, too. Hopefully it was natural. Then Luke kissed me...again. It sent tingles all the way down to my tail bone. And if I'd had my tail, I was sure my fin would have been tingling, too.

Then he released me, took a few steps backward, and disappeared into the sea. I sighed. Despite all that, I somehow felt happy...very happy. If I were a cat, I was sure I'd have purred. My life might have been weird, but I was okay with that.


	2. Chapter 2

Port Toulouse, Nova Scotia  
March 17, 2012  
Change, minus three hours.

Night came all too early, even in early spring, which, let's face it, only differed from winter in being less dark, less dreary, and decidedly not snowed in and iced over. Well, at least not much. Not most years. So it was that dusk found me nursing a hot chocolate at Bridget's Diner. I'd started with a latte over at Mug Glug's, but, well, they had shorter hours. Especially during the off-season.

I looked over my cup at Cori.

“You're glowing,” she said, her tone half teasing.

I cocked an eyebrow.

Cori smiled. “You're getting Luke back tomorrow. There's a twinkle in your eye. A bounce in your step. All that. Like I said, you're glowing.”

I cocked my head and shot my oh-don't-give-me-that smile at Cori.

“No, really,” she insisted. “You just light up whenever he's around you.” Her smile broadened and she leaned forward. “You're in love.”

I nearly norked my drink out my nose. Not that I'd ever done that with a hot chocolate and I wasn't about to start. Having water up my nose was uncomfortable enough. Well, chlorinated water, anyway. Salt water actually tickled. Probably another one of those mermaid things. I still didn't want to think about soda pop.

“I think Luke's in love with you back,” she continued.

It was a good thing I hadn't taken another drink. “W...what?!” I blurted.

Cori cocked her head. “Oh, don't tell me you haven't noticed how he looks at you.”

“Um...”

“Trust me. He's in love with you. Not just that. He...he _wants_ you.”

“Wants me?”

Cori nodded. “Yeah. And I do mean like that.”

I nearly dropped my chocolate. “What?!”

“I suppose it's probably safe to say you haven't noticed how a lot of the other guys have been looking at you.”

I shook my head slowly.

Cori's smile broadened. “You're developing some serious curves.”

“Uh-huh,” I said dubiously.

“No, really. What's your dress size these days?”

I thought for a moment. “Sixteen.”

“Almost fourteen,” Cori corrected. “And you can't tell me you haven't noticed that either.”

I shrugged. “Well...I haven't.”

Cori groaned. “Well you might if you didn't wear your Norse garb so much.”

“But I like my Norse garb!” I protested.

“Yeah, I know. I've only had to take it in, like, three times.” Her smile turned wry. “Besides, why do you think I made it so close-fitting? Seriously, though, next time you're in jeans...or your swimsuit...pay attention.”

“In my swimsuit? But I'm always doing the water polo thing.”

“Just do it, okay?”

“O-kay,” I said hesitantly. “But...size fourteen? How the heck did I get to a size fourteen?”

“Seriously? How do you think?”

“Uh...because I've been so busy I haven't had time to eat?”

“It's...not that.” At what I was sure was a blank look, Cori continued. “What all do you do these days? Besides school, I mean.”

“Water polo. Safe-Two-Swim. Heavy armored combat. Archery. Swimming around with my mer-friends.” I shrugged.

“You know what all of that is, don't you?”

“Extracurricular activities?”

Cori leaned even closer. “Ex...er...cise!”

You could have knocked me over with a feather. “Ex...exercise? Me?”

Cori tipped her head back and laughed. “Oh, Jade, you're hilarious! Is it any wonder we all love you?”

I waited for my brain to stop convulsing. “I...I never thought of it like that.”

“See?” said Cori. “That's the key! You were so involved in it, you never even noticed it was exercise!”

“Whoa,” I said. “That's...deep.”

“Isn't it?”

I smiled, then lifted my chocolate mug back to my mouth and took another sip.

An hour and a half later, Cori and I stepped out onto the street and into the cold night air. We stood there for a couple of minutes, our breath fogging in the neon lights.

“Um,” I said finally, “want me to walk you home? I'm packing, after all.”

We looked at each other for several moments and then burst out laughing.

“Is that what you call it?” said Cori between breaths.

“Sure,” I said in kind. “What else would I call it?”

Cori wiped her eyes. “No idea.”

“No, really. I'm carrying a good eight inches of live steel. Sharpened live steel, to be precise.”

Cori shook her head. “Not quite the same thing as a twenty-two.”

“Or pepper spray, for that matter.” That had been a thing the year before.

Dad had made me carry a tube of the stuff my fifteenth year. At the time, I'd thought he'd been a bit nuts. I mean, it wasn't as if our sleepy seaside town had ever been a hotbed of crime. But, surprisingly, it had come in handy against, of all things, mer-prisoners. Which had turned out to have been quite different than it had looked at face value.

“Besides,” I added, “I don't need a concealed carry license for a blade. Plus it's more Period.”

Cori laughed again. “Jade, you're so funny.”

“So you keep saying.”

Cori turned in the direction of her house and I fell in beside her. “I guess it's a good thing you're trained to use that,” she said, nodding toward my waist.

“Yeah, who'd have thunk it?” I didn't mention that most of my knife training had been given me by Luke's mer-dad and my mer-friend Reese. But Cori knew that anyway. What she might not have known was that doing any sort of fighting underwater was way different than doing it on land. I mean, totally different skill sets! At least I'd have the upper hand fighting someone in the pouring rain.

“You know,” said Cori after a while, “maybe you should audition.”

“For what?”

“Celtic Woman.”

I would have sporffled any beverage I might have been drinking at the time. I wasn't sure whether or not that comment surprised me more than the one about Luke being in love with me or me getting curves from doing exercise.

“Um...I'm not sure how to take that.”

We stopped on the sidewalk in front of Cori's house. “Jade, you have the most beautiful voice I've ever heard. And I'm not just saying that.”

“Are you sure it's not because I'm...you know?”

Cori shrugged. “No, I'm not sure. But is that really the point?”

I considered that for what felt like a couple of minutes. “Okay, but how would I go about doing that?”

“Don't you have tickets?”

I smiled. Celtic Woman was my favorite singing group ever. And I did have tickets to their May concert in Montreal.

“Well, yeah. But what am I going to do, poke my head backstage and say hi?”

“Talk to the Chamberlains. They know, like, everyone.”

I chuckled. “Maybe I will.”

Cori and I exchanged hugs. I watched her close her front door before turning around and trudging slowing back toward my own house beyond the other end of town.

Most of the businesses that had still been open when Cori and I had left Bridget's—and I could literally have counted those on one hand—were dark by the time I strolled back through downtown Port Toulouse.

I slowed my pace. Totally not the sort of thing I'd have done were I alone in the big city. But, well, the only remotely dangerous thing anywhere in the vicinity was a mosquito. I chuckled softly, remembering that I'd thought much the same thing less than a year before. That had been before I'd known about the mers in Talisman Lake, let alone being one myself.

I strolled across the bridge spanning the canal, my feet making thumping sounds on the metal traction grating. I stopped at the eastern end. On a whim, I strolled over to Battery Provincial Park.

Most of it was dark, lit only by the occasional spare pole-mounted lamp. Ostensibly for safety, of course. Not that many people were likely to be there after dark, especially in the middle of March.

I trudged down to the lake shore and sat on a bench. It was the very same bench on which I'd been sitting the previous May when I'd seen Mom in the water, when I'd gone in after her, been pulled down by mers, and subsequently been set on what I'd later learned to have been a voyage of self-discovery. Yeah, there were lots of memories wrapped up in the lake. Some good, others not so good, still more bitter-sweet. But I could live with that.

I let it all unspool in my mind as I sat there, listening to the sounds of the night. There weren't many that time of year. There was mostly the soft sound of water lapping on the shore just a few meters away from my feet. An owl hooted, answered moments later by another, which set off an exchange of hoots that seemed to last for a while.

The streetlights of town reflected off the water. Other lights all along the shore marked the houses that were otherwise invisible by either night or day unless you knew they were there and exactly where to look.

I didn't know just how long I'd sat there. After a while, I became aware of a white glow to the southwest. What was that? At first, it almost looked like stadium lighting. But they would have been on all evening. And I'd grown up in Port Toulouse and I was dead certain there were no stadiums in that direction anyway.

Besides, it was...I pulled out my phone and checked...whoa! A bit past nine! Yikes!

I shoved my phone back into my pocket and stood up. Dad was not going to be happy. Funny he hadn't called yet. Maybe...no, no, no. I was _not_ going to think about what he and Mom might be doing...aw, nuts. Too late.

The light grew progressively brighter. I stood there just watching it. Was it...oh, don't tell me someone nuked us!

No sooner had I thought that, then what looked like a band of electrical arcs rose above the low bumps that separated the lake from the sea. The band of light stretched as far as I could see from one direction to the other. It rushed toward me faster than I'd have thought possible. Then it washed over me...or maybe through me was more like it.

I closed my eyes, but it was like the light went right through my lids and into my brain. My head exploded with a sharp, intense pain worse than I'd ever imagined. Were migraines like that? A split second later, it was gone, leaving only the memory of it in its wake.

I blinked and reached out to the bench to steady myself. What the heck had that been? I looked around, then froze. All the lights in town were gone. So were all the ones all around the lake. That wasn't good.

I dug into my pocket and pulled out my phone. It was dead. I pulled off the battery cover, took out the battery, waited thirty seconds, then put it back in. Still nothing. Fiddlesticks! I blinked. Then a horrible thought struck me.

I looked up. The band of Milky Way stars stretched across the sky and a crescent moon hung in the sky. I exhaled heavily. Whew! Not blind! Just all the power was out. But the only thing that could have done that was an EMP. That did not bode well.

I spun about and blundered back to the road. I was sure I must have bounced off of half the trees in the park before crunching onto the shoulder gravel.

Fortunately, I instinctively knew which direction home was. A left pivot put me on the asphalt headed northeast. I plodded carefully along, being sure to stay on the road. I had to look up into the sky periodically to reassure myself that I hadn't gone blind. After a short while, I began to see what looked like candle and lantern light springing to life in a few of the windows here and there along the lake shore. Most of the visible ones were between me and the lake.

One skill I had yet to even remotely acquire was the ability to gauge time without constantly looking at a clock. Normally, it didn't take me too long to walk home from the park. But the obstacle course between my bench and the road had kind of set me on edge, so I was plodding along at the pace of a drunk banana slug.

A familiar voice floated out of the night. “Jade!” it called.

Hey, that was Dad! “ _Dad_!” I yelled.

I could see what looked like a gas lantern far ahead. “Jade!” Dad said again. I wasn't sure if he'd heard me.

I picked up my pace, perhaps more than was safe. Fortunately, roads tended to be unobstructed. “ _Dad_!” I yelled again.

The light began to bounce. Before long, it had closed to within a few dozen meters. “Jade!”

“Dad!”

He stopped just in front of me, his breathing labored. He swung an arm around me. “Thank God you're safe!”

“Uh, thanks. I'm fine. Sorry I stayed out late. I walked Cori home, then wound up down by the lake and then just got lost in thought. I'm really sorry. And then that light show happened and my cell phone died so I couldn't call. What _was_ that, anyway?”

“I have no idea,” said Dad.

“You don't?”

“EMP was my best guess. But it took out things an EMP shouldn't.”

“Like what?”

“Like those wind-up flashlights we have. And all the spare batteries. I even tried the diesel generator. The old hand-crank one. There's fuel, I just wasn't getting compression. I'll look at it again in the morning when it's light. But whatever that was, I don't think it was something normal.”

Another thought hit me. “Luke! Dad, if all the power's out, how are we going to use the Merlin?”

“I have no idea,” said Dad, as we both turned back toward home.

We spent the rest of the way in silence. Not that Dad had ever been that chatty. But he seemed more absorbed in thought than usual. Not that I could blame him. Although knowing him, he was probably churning a lot of technical stuff over in his mind. Me, I had no idea what to think, aside from getting Luke back on dry land.

Our house, and especially the living room, somehow looked a lot different in the glow of lantern and candlelight. Mom sat stiffly by the kitchen table, a lone candle burning in front of her.

“Jade!” she nearly shrieked. She stood up quickly, and caught me in a hug. “We were worried about you.”

“Uh...thanks,” I said, enjoying her arms around me. “I'm fine.”

“She'd been on her bench by the lake,” said Dad.

“I'm sorry,” I said, mostly to Mom. “I didn't mean to do that. I'd have called, but...”

“Yeah, we tried that,” said Mom. “Land line's out, too.”

Dad stepped around Mom, set the Coleman lantern on the table, and opened the gas valve. It hissed weakly, the twin mantles slowly dimming before going out altogether. “Pain the butt getting the pressure up on this, too,” he said.

“You mean, more than usual?” I asked. I never could quite get the hang of that thing.

Dad just nodded. Then he ran his hand over his hair, his universal worried gesture.

I looked up at Mom. “Dad said he doesn't know if he can get Luke back.”

Mom stroked my hair a couple of times before replying. “Look, I know you're worried about him. But remember, he's with his mer-family. He'll be fine. And it's not like you can't go visit if we can't get his legs back.”

I nodded. Mom was right. I was the first and only Mer in history to be able to change back and forth more or less at will. “Well,” I said at length, “I suppose he's worth the tail pain.”

Mom chuckled. “And in the meantime, it's not like we're going to solve anything right now. I don't know about either of you two, but I could use some sleep. We'll all think better in the morning. After a little coffee, that is.”

Somehow that made me chuckle. Then I yawned. They were right, though. There wasn't much I could do about it and I supposed I could panic over breakfast just as well as right in the middle of a candlelit kitchen.

Dad snuffed out the candles and we all tottered off to our respective rooms. I hadn't brushed my teeth, but I wasn't about to try navigating the bathroom without a night light. I shed my clothes, found my pajamas and slid between the covers. I had a feeling my life had just become even weirder than it was already. And that was saying something!


	3. Chapter 3

Port Toulouse, Nova Scotia  
March 18, Change Year 1, 2012 AD

The first thing I saw when I opened my eyes was a grey-ish rectangle. It took me a moment or three to recognize it as my bedroom window. Of course it was. What else could it be? Darned disorientation. Must have been all the excitement from last night. Last night!

I sat bolt upright, the memory coming back to me. The light, the pain, the power outage. It was all so strange, and so disturbing. Something was very wrong. I could feel it.

I crawled unwillingly out of bed. Which was also strange, since I almost never pried myself out from under the covers that early in the morning, except under extreme duress. In fact, it usually took no fewer than three alarm clocks. Which, well, were not working.

I pulled on socks, sweat pants, and a sweatshirt, and padded down the hall.

Mom and Dad were already up. One of them had kindled a small fire in our seldom-used wood stove. A metal kettle and a sauce pan sat on top. A waft of steam rose from the pan in the kerosene lantern light.

“Good morning, sweetie,” said Mom.

I grunted. “Morning.”

“You're up early,” said Dad.

“Uh...yeah. Don't ask me why.”

“Last night's excitement?” said Mom.

I nodded. “For lack of a better explanation? Sure.” I sat down at the dining table. “What was that, anyway?”

Dad stuffed another piece of wood into the stove, closed the door, and looked up. He exhaled. “No idea. But it wasn't normal.”

“Yeah,” I said. “Got that. Felt it, too.”

Dad grunted. “The headache?”

“More than that. Like...like...”

“Like a Jedi feeling a ripple in the Force?” Leave it to Dad to make a nerd reference.

But I got the point. I nodded. “How did you...?”

“Your mother said something similar.”

“I don't know how to describe it,” said Mom. “Other than that there was something there, something I haven't felt since the last time I changed.”

I felt my body stiffen. I knew exactly what she meant. I hadn't noticed it the first several times I had changed from human to mermaid and then back again. But over the many times I had morphed since then, there had always been a constant sensation, something I never bothered trying to explain or describe. I suppose I had just figured it to be part of the change.

“You mean...the mermaid thing?”

Mom nodded.

“So...what would that have to do with what happened last night?”

Dad shook his head. “I have no idea. But if it's somehow connected to whatever happens when you turn, it might explain a few things. Maybe.”

I slumped a little. “What sorts of things?” I asked slowly.

Dad ran a hand through his hair.

“Go ahead,” said Mom. “She can handle it.”

That did not bode well.

“Batteries are dead. All of them. The generator doesn't work. Neither does the snowblower. I can't even get the friction flashlights to work. It's just weird.”

“But...what does that mean?”

Dad shook his head. “I don't know. But it's bad. Very bad.”

A realization hit me like a brick. The Merlin 3000! “Luke! What about him? How are we going to get him back?”

Mom placed a hand on my arm. “Honey? He'll be fine. He's with his mer-family. And you can go visit him in the ocean.”

“Your mother's right,” said Dad. “That's a hiccup.”

“A hiccup? How?”

Dad sat down hard in the chair opposite me and Mom. “Think about it. If electricity doesn't work...” He let it dangle.

It didn't take me long to catch up. I gasped. “Luke and Trey's mom! Gran!”

Dad nodded. He didn't bother to explain further. If power was out all over town, and possibly elsewhere, and no one else could get a generator going, the hospital was going to be in real trouble. It probably already was. And if no one could get an engine started, there wouldn't be any more medications. And that was probably just the beginning. The implications were big, probably bigger than I realized and I was probably having a hard time wrapping my head around it all.

One thing was clear, the logistics alone were going to be an absolute nightmare!

“What if this is permanent?” I blurted.

“Then I think,” said Mom, “that we're all in for a very long, very hard year.”

* * *

I knelt down by the water's edge a stone's throw from where we kept the Merlin 3000, watching for the tell-tale swish of Luke's fin breaking the water. And there it was.

_Hey there, beautiful_ , he rang.

I smiled. _Hey there yourself...handsome._

_Hi, Mister Baxter, Missus Baxter._

“Afternoon, Luke,” said Dad.

_We have a bit of a problem_ , Mom rang.

_And something tells me it's not something your dad can solve_ , Luke replied.

I chuckled ruefully. _No, not remotely. Did you see that bright light last night?_

_Yeah. That was really weird. What was it?_

“No idea,” said Dad. “But it's bad. Very bad.”

He proceeded to tell Luke about the problems with electricity, engines, gas pressure, and gunpowder. That it didn't take him long both surprised me and didn't. None of us had any idea what it was. But Dad was the smartest guy I knew, so if it stumped him, that was not a good sign.

Luke was still for several moments. Then, _geez_ , he rang. _That's...that's bad._

That was the understatement of the week.

_Is Mom okay?_

_For now_ , Mom rang.

_But if she has another attack..._ He let the sentence dangle.

_Darl hopes this is temporary. But if it isn't, then the Martins are going to have to figure out how to treat your mom's condition alternatively. The same goes for everyone else._

I grimaced, trying not to think about it too much. Trying, and not really succeeding.

_So_ , Luke continued, _sounds like the Merlin is out, eh?_

_Yeah_ , I rang.

_Guess we'll have to use the tide pool again._

_But_ , rang Mom, _remember how difficult it was last time?_

_I do_ , he rang. _Something tells me that sooner or later, I'm going to have to choose between land and sea. And Dad might need help with Mom. I can't let Trey carry that all by himself._

_We'd expect no less_ , Mom rang.

_I'm sure Mister Baxter will figure something out. He's a smart guy. In the meantime, you can still visit. And the best part is that I get to legitimately skip school._

I chuckled. _Not so fast, buster_ , I rang. _I'm pretty sure you'll still be responsible for the homework._

Luke poked his head out of the water and gave me the raspberry. We all laughed. That much was a good sign, at least.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Being "responsible for the homework" was something my high school trigonometry teacher liked to say.


	4. Chapter 4

Port Toulouse, Nova Scotia  
March 19, Change Year 1, 2012 AD

As I trudged toward school, the weight of the surreality of the whole thing weighed tangibly on my shoulders. I couldn't even pass it off as my imagination turning backpack straps into something else. Especially since I'd been using a sturdy satchel since Christmas Break.

I glanced around at the eerily empty streets and roads I'd traveled during my walk across town and shuddered. 

“Jade!” Cori called from half a block away. She picked up her pace a little.

“Hey! I see you're still staying stylish,” I said, gesturing at her teal cardigan, designer jeans, and white leather sneakers.

Cori shrugged. “Why not? It's not like it's the end of the world, or anything. And I see you're planning to go Viking.”

I chuckled, then did my best Madonna impression. “I'm a low-tech girl, in a low-tech world, I don't need a cell phone...”

Cori laughed. “I have to admit, it's a bit different. At least it's peaceful, without all those engines.”

I grunted. “And those annoying tail pipe noise can things,” I added. “Except that there's a pallor of doom hanging over our collective heads.”

“Oh, don't be so morbid, Jade.”

“Morbid? Cori, you know as well as anyone what I...what we...have been through the last year. So you'll have to excuse me for not being terribly thrilled about having to go to school during an apocalypse.”

“You think that's what it is?”

I shrugged. “Well...no one really knows anything, so one person's guess is just as good as another's.”

Cori chuckled. “Oh, I get it. You were hoping for an extension of Spring Break, what with the official declaration of emergency.”

“Are you kidding? Everyone was.”

“At least your boyfriend actually gets one.”

“Hrmph. Lucky him.” Yet another reminder. How the heck were we going to get Luke back on land? I had no idea and neither, apparently, did anyone else.

“We'll figure it out, Jade. Just like we figured out everything else. Look on the bright side, he'll still be responsible for the homework!”

I knew Cori was right. She'd always been my grounding rod, at least as much as my parents, and now Luke. I shot her a strained smile. “One thing at a time, right?”

“Exactly.”

We walked up the steps and into a darkened corridor. As usual, kids milled about, the sounds of rustling papers and locker doors echoing in the space. Missing, however, was the typical cacophony of voices. In their place was a collection of murmurs, whispers, and the occasional teary sniffle. The tension was so thick, I could swim through it.

I couldn't blame anyone. Confusion, fear, sorrow, a little bit of excitement, I was feeling it all. And so, apparently, was everyone else.

Occasionally, someone pulled out a device, looked at it, scowled, and put it back. That was yet another reminder that things were not normal. The extent to which people had been glued to their phones, iPods, FitBits, and so on was truly remarkable.

I didn't need an awful lot of imagination to know how that would go. Every so often, an outage knocked out power to all the cell towers. When that happened, everyone was briefly cut off from the outside world. Holy moly, the panic that caused could fill a few sagas! But each time it happened, it spotlighted just how dependent people had allowed themselves to become on their connectivity.

That wasn't to say that phones weren't useful. Mine had saved my bacon on several occasions, including the first few months of my mer-odyssey. Yet today, some people looked like they'd lost a limb.

I retrieved the books for my first couple of periods and padded toward Homeroom, my soft leather shoes tapping quietly on the tile flooring, the sound almost unmuffled. I was almost the first person into the room. I smoothed my woolen skirts, then slid into my assigned seat.

I looked around at all the empty seats. Fully a third of the class was absent. That did not bode well. I'd had mixed feelings about being in the grade eight-nine split last fall. At the time, I'd been looking forward to moving up in the whole social ladder thing. But, no. The Powers That Be had had other ideas. Which still, as far as I was concerned, had me in grade eight. And now? Now, I wasn't sure it mattered anymore.

The door to the hall opened, and a familiar woman walked in. I felt an eyebrow raise, even as a couple of voices behind me muttered something about a substitute.

“Good morning, everyone,” said Coach Laurena.

“Good morning, Coach!” I gushed back.

Oops. Maybe I overdid it. But how could I help being a little enthusiastic if our substitute was on Team Tail?

Laurena looked straight at me and smiled. “It's good to see _some_ enthusiasm this morning,” she said. Her gaze flitted about the room. “Obviously, some of you couldn't make it today, so when I call roll, if anyone knows why an absentee isn't here, please speak up. I realize that's a little unorthodox, but in case you didn't get the memo, we're in a state of emergency.”

She pulled out a sheet of paper and began to call names. Mine was near the top of the list. Of course, she already knew I was here, but I said so anyway, mainly for the record. The roll went on. Most of those not present lived up the lake in one direction or another. A few lived across town, reportedly trying to deal with medical issues or family with medical issues. In a few instances, no one seemed to know why they hadn't made it.

I was glad I didn't have to explain Luke's absence. I was sure Laurena would have suspected the real reason, but we mers officially didn't exist. So he would probably have been declared a medical absence. Which would have been more or less true, from a certain point of view.

After calling roll, Laurena put down pen and paper and leaned casually against the teacher's desk at the front of the room.

“Right,” she said. “I'm going to assume you were at the town meeting yesterday, or that your parents were. So I'm going to also assume that you're aware of the situation.”

I heard a rustle of clothing behind me.

“Yes, Miss McCarthy?”

“Coach,” said Tiffany, “they didn't exactly tell us what happened. Only that all the power's down, none of the engines or generators or anything work, and that we're to go on as normal.”

I heard a hrmphing sound behind me in the other direction.

“You have something to add, Mister...Bowen?”

“Um...sure,” said John. “They want us to just get on with our lives, as if nothing happened. How are we supposed to do that, anyway?”

“That's a very good question. How do you think?”

“Um...what?”

Laurena raised an eyebrow. “Was I unclear?”

“A little.”

“You said you're expected to get on with your lives as if nothing happened. You clearly think that expectation is unrealistic. So let me present this question to the class. Where do we go from here?”

The ensuing silence was so pregnant, I could have heard a labor contraction. That is, if I knew what a labor contraction was supposed to sound like. Okay, so that was a lame metaphor. But, still, no one said anything. And I didn't think it was because no one wanted to answer unless called upon to give one. No, just like me, I was pretty sure no one else had any clue either.

“Why are you all here? At school, I mean. Not just today, but the rest of the time.”

“Because our parents told us to get our butts over here, or else?” said Tim.

A ripple of strained laughter followed.

Laurena smiled. “Besides that, Mister Timmerman?”

“Because we're the future?” I said.

“Jade,” said Sharon Stafford, “that's so cliché.”

“Yeah, well, it's true,” I protested.

“Alright,” said Laurena. “To a degree, you're both right. In a broad sense, you're here to learn all that is learnable. You're also here to learn to solve problems. Because one way or another, that's how we're all going to move forward, emergency or not. Some of you...” She looked directly at me. “...know a lot about solving problems during a crisis.

“And that's what this is. You all know that my primary responsibility is essentially to teach students to fight. It's in the arena of water polo mostly, but the principles are the same. You face an obstacle, an opponent, and you face it.

“What they probably haven't told you, and what they may not even realize yet, is that things have the potential to be really bad. I'm not saying that to scare you, but to prepare you. I think the rules of life have been suddenly re-written. Until today, you've all been preparing for life after secondary school. Whether that's trade school, work, university, what have you. But as of now, you'll also have to prepare for a lot of other things.

“And that's what I want you all to begin thinking about. Yes, you will still need to study your math, science, literature, and so forth. But you'll also have to solve some problems, some of them beginning this week.”

“Like what?” asked Tim.

“Do you know where medication comes from? Or food? Water? Soap?”

Another pregnant pause followed.

“Oh...shit,” said John.

“I'll thank you to mind your language, Mister Bowen,” said Laurena, “but I think you've hit the nail on the head. The truth is that we have no idea how widespread this thing is. And we have no real way of knowing, short of sending someone out on horseback or sailboat and waiting for them to return. One thing is certain. Without deliveries from outside, we're all going to be in a great deal of trouble by the end of the week. And it's only going to get worse. That is, unless all of us, all of you, work together to solve the problems.

“Can anyone tell me what's going to happen first?”

There was more silence.

“Some people have already died,” said Megan Stevenson.

“And we're losing water pressure out of our faucets,” added Sharon.

“My cousin has type-one diabetes,” said Sam Spencer. “She could die of shock in less than a month.”

“And we'll starve?” said Tim.

“Now you're thinking!” said Laurena. “Now, what can be done about all that?”

There was more silence.

Laurena nodded. It was as if she'd anticipated that, and she probably had. “So I have an assignment for you,” she said.

“But this is homeroom,” said Tim, “we're not supposed to have assignments.”

“Yes, and the laws of physics are supposed to be immutable. I tell you all, that the sooner you accept that the world is stranger than you think, the better you'll adapt to everything that challenges your preconceived ideas. And believe me, it's out there.”

I suppressed a chuckle. She wasn't kidding about any of that, and the two of us were living proof of it!

“So,” she continued, “here's what I want each of you to do. Find out what it takes to feed the population of greater Port Toulouse. Then find out what it will take to produce that much food. This won't be something you can do overnight, nor do I expect you to do it all by yourselves. This crisis is going to require teamwork if we're to survive it, so I want you be on a team. It doesn't have to be with people in this room. I can just be your family. If it helps, think of it as your opportunity to be someone's hero.

“There are plenty of people who can help, some of whom are probably already working on it. The folks over at the Agricultural Extension would love to share what they know. Miss Baxter's father's company will probably be involved with a number of projects. And, of course, anyone who's been studying pre-industrial methods, whether as a hobby or otherwise, will be a resource, too. Any questions?”

Tim raised his hand.

“Yes, Mister Timmerman?”

“How do we know when class is over?”

“Cheeky,” she said. “Who has questions pertaining to the assignment?” A pause. “Yes, Miss Jukes?”

“What if this is temporary?” Andera asked.

“Then you'll all have learned some valuable lessons about logistics and planning. And you'll have an opportunity to participate in a sort of living history exercise. But let me ask you all this, what if it isn't?”

Laurena nodded. “I don't expect that to last long. But my door is always open if you want to talk. Class is dismissed.”

Everyone got up wordlessly, collecting their notebooks and such, and filed out.

“Miss Baxter?” said Laurena. “May I have a word with you before you go?”

“Uh...sure.”

“I'd like you to come see me in my office after last period.”

I cocked an eyebrow. “Uh...okay? Is this a swimming thing?”

“Sort of. I have some thoughts I'd like to discuss with you. Critical thoughts.”

I nodded slowly. “Sure. No sweat. Is that all?”

“For now.”

I turned to go, then paused. “Thanks for filling in. Really.”

She nodded. “Any time.”

The rest of the day was a patchwork of teachers trying to run their classes like normal, and others doing just the opposite. A couple of other teachers were absent, and a third class was canceled altogether.

Mr. Randall's algebra class was almost like normal. The dry-erase board was a little harder to see than usual, even if Mr. Randall kept to only darker-colored pens. He was still as enthusiastic as ever. So was Nate Tanner and his eerie mimicry of Mr. Randall's signature “We have time to get started on the homework! Yay!” This time, Christina Monsen whirled around in her seat and half-shrieked, “Stop that!” Which broke some of the lingering tension we'd all been feeling.

Gym class was about like always, except that we couldn't use the locker room on account of darkness. Apparently, no one was terribly keen on using open candles in there. So we had to do it all in our “street clothes,” as they were called. Or bare feet, for the couple of girls who'd worn heels for whatever reason. Watching Jenny Leedy play basketball in Mary-Janes was amusing. Though not nearly as amusing as me in my Norse garb. Hey, at least I was comfortable!

Mr. Harris had to abandon his usual string of in-class history videos. Instead, he shared more of his stories as a volunteer firefighter. Which, admittedly, wasn't hard. How any of us ever passed his exams was a minor miracle.

Mr. Fessenden's science class lacked a certain something. We were supposed to be doing experiments relating to electromagnetism. To his frustration, none of it worked, to say nothing of the overhead projector.

Mrs. Markoe's English class began with an unscheduled reading of “Beowulf.” My kind of thing! Hafway through the introductory material, my mind began to wander. Way back when rocks were still soft, oral tradition was the way of things. Were we all on the verge of that? Surely we, as a society, wouldn't forget how to read and write. But how hard was it going to be to make paper? What we had lying around wasn't going to last forever and if the whole world had Changed, then the machines that made it were dead.

Sure, oral tradition was part of that Norse stuff I'd been slowly adopting since joining the SCA. And, sure, we mers also relied heavily on oral tradition. But it was bound to have its limitations. The more I thought about it, the more it seemed to me that we were all on the cusp of a lot of really painful changes to a new normal.

After last period, I made my way to the gymnasium complex, where Coach Laurena had her office just around the corner from the main door to the pool. I found the door standing open, darkness inside.

“Hello?” I said.

“Jade!” Laurena called. “I'm in here!”

I looked over to the pool door. Someone had propped it open. I stepped over to it and looked in. Coach Laurena had set up a small table beneath the room's generous skylights. Papers and a few pens lay on it.

“Dark office,” she said.

“I noticed,” I said as I padded in.

Laurena gestured to a folding chair set up across the table from her. I took the hint. “I hope you realize,” she said after I'd settled myself, “that a lot of what I said this morning was directed at you.”

“Yeah...kinda figured.” I lowered my voice a little more. “Why aren't we ringing?” I nearly whispered.

“Good question,” she said. “Why aren't you?”

“Because you're not.”

“Because...?” she prompted.

“Um...because we can't cover for it in the usual way?”

She nodded. “And Jade? We still need to keep all that a secret. At least until we have a chance to discuss it with the Council. You know how twitchy we are about that, right?”

I chuckled. “Oh, boy, do I ever,” I said, the events post-Tail quickly rampaging through my mind's eye.

“Jade, we're going to need you, as an ambassador of sorts.”

I blinked. “Me? Why me?”

“You're still the only one we know of who can go back and forth at will.”

I looked sharply at Laurena. “At will?”

She nodded. “I know it's more complicated than that, but for all practical purposes, and especially compared to the rest of us, yes. Our people are going to have to share the sea and someone is going to have to facilitate that. That person is more than likely going to have to be you. Which I think you'll find the most difficult thing you've ever done. Between our compulsion to help humans in trouble, and humans' reluctance to acknowledge our existence, it's going to be tricky. Especially if the Council decides against revealing our presence.

“Topside, all your skills are going to be valuable. Especially what you've been doing in the SCA. You might not know it yet, but I think you and your fellows are about to become the most popular people in town, for better or for worse.”

“You think so?”

She exhaled heavily. “Jade, I don't think this is going to just blow over.”

“Uh...you don't?”

“No. I don't. I think whatever Changed is permanent. Don't tell me you didn't feel it.”

I frowned. “You mean besides the momentary splitting headache?”

“It's...hard to describe. I suggest you talk to your parents. Knowing them, they've had a compare and contrast session, as it were. 

“Just promise me you'll take all this seriously. Because I'm pretty sure most of the class, along with the greater community, is still just smiling and nodding at this point.”

“I promise.”

“Good. You'd better get going.”

“And thanks for your support through all the, um, craziness last year.”

She smiled broadly. “Oh, and we're having a meeting at Bridget's at dusk.”

I raised an eyebrow. “Would that be one of those Team Tail meetings?”

She nodded.

“And you want Mom to take notes for me?”

“I was expecting you to take your own notes.”

I blinked. “Uh...me? As in, I'm invited?”

Laurena's smile faded a little. “Jade, I think you're going to find that people are going to start growing up a lot sooner than they did before. Ready or not, you're going to be doing a lot of adulting and sooner than you'd like. You've been doing some of it anyway, so you may as well dive in with both lobes.”

“I don't know if I'm ready for that kind of responsibility.”

“And that's how you know you're ready.”

“So...if I think I'm ready, then I'm not, but if I think I'm not ready, then I am?”

“More or less. I've seen it a lot with teens. Those who are the most convinced of their own maturity tend to have far less than they think they do. And those who are aware of their own limitations tend to be the most level-headed.”

“I didn't think about it that way.”

She reached out and placed a hand on my shoulder. “You're doing fine, Jade. Really. I'll see you in a few hours.”

My mind was still in a bit of a whirl as I left the school grounds that afternoon. Looking around, I could tell that most of my peers were treating this whole thing like a sort of glorified snow day or something. I supposed I couldn't really blame them. The gravity of the situation hadn't really hit me either. It still felt more than a little surreal.

But I knew from recent experience that expecting things to go back to a previous normal was just wishful thinking. At the time, I'd wanted things to go back to normal. Only later had I realized that they had become my new normal. And something told me this Change was no different, that we had all awakened to a new normal, one that hardly anyone had really recognized yet.

* * *

Mom and I trudged along the pavement in eerie silence. My ears kept straining for the expected cars to approach from behind us. I had to keep reminding myself that there wouldn't be any cars. Not today, not this week, possibly not ever.

“Are you sure?” I finally asked.

Mom exhaled heavily.

“Sorry,” I said.

“No, it's okay,” she said. “It's just...the implications terrify me. And that's put me on edge.”

I winced. I'd come home from school in the middle of an argument between my parents. Actually, I wasn't even sure it was that. It was a loud discussion and they were both upset, but as near as I could tell, they didn't necessarily disagree about anything in particular.

“And that Dad wants more data?”

“That, too.”

It seemed to have boiled down to that Mom had felt something at the moment of the Change that Dad hadn't. Dad, being his usual self, was trying to over-think it, obsessing over the data and the evidence. It didn't help that half the information he wanted apparently didn't exist, or if it did, none of the equipment to measure it worked anymore. And Mom just as certainly knew, as Coach Laurena did, that something had Changed and probably for good. And she couldn't explain her position any better than Dad could explain his. Which I was pretty sure had everything to do with this afternoon's friction.

“So what do you think it was?” I asked after another minute.

“Magic.”

“Um...there's no such thing, Mom.”

She paused and looked straight into my eyes. “Are you sure?”

“Well...yeah.”

“How long does it take you to pomomorph?”

“I don't know. A few seconds. Maybe half a minute to change back.”

“And that's never struck you as odd?”

Odd? Odd didn't even begin to cover it. “A little,” I said. “I mean, it was a bit of a shock that first time I sat staring at my tail.” I paused. “Okay, so I was absolutely horrified and terrified. It was very traumatic.”

“I meant, has it ever struck you as odd that you can metamorphose that quickly?”

I chuckled, sounding eerily like Mom. “I knew that,” I said. “And...I dunno. I guess. But don't butterflies metamorphose, too?”

“Yes, but it takes them several weeks. You do it in seconds. How would you explain it?”

“Uh...Dad said we evolved.”

Mom chuckled. “That's your father for you. Always trying to rationalize everything. As you might imagine, he and I have talked about that plenty of times. He hasn't said so, but I'm pretty sure it's how he made sense of seeing me there in all my fishy glory the day we met. No, Jade, no matter what your dad believes about Evolution, what you do defies science. And so does whatever Changed Saturday night. He's just going to have to get over it. Just like everyone else.”

I exhaled heavily. “I guess.”

“I'm really proud of you, Jade. You've been showing a lot more maturity than most people your age.”

I snorted. “Most people my age don't have their moms come back from the dead.”

Mom squeezed my arm. Our eyes met and for a moment, it was like looking into a mirror.

“Hey,” I said, “it was all very traumatic.”

“Oh, I believe you. But the fact remains, you're growing up fast. And if whatever has Changed is permanent, then you're going to need it.”

“Now you're starting to scare me.”

“Good. Because we're all going to need that to jar our brains into motion. The one thing we don't need is to be sitting on our hands, waiting for someone else to figure out what to do.”

A few moments later, we stepped onto the metal grating of the bridge over St. Peter Canal. Two dozen slightly echoing steps later put us back on blacktop. Downtown looked empty. There had been very few vehicles there in the middle of Saturday night. Even most of the patrons the local bar far down the street had gone home by then.

In the place of cars, a few horses stood hitched to the wooden railings someone had installed a decade or two before as part of an effort to beef up our town's vintage look for the tourism industry. Pedestrians milled about, bleak expressions on their faces. Even for mid-March, there were still only half as many of them as usual.

Candle and lamp light flickered in a few store front windows. Whether the darkened ones had even been open at all that day, I had no idea. A quick glance at the signage still visible in the waning light told me that at least half of them hadn't bothered. As we strolled, I watched that light wink out as their proprietors decided to call it quits for the day. A woman locked up one store, clomped down a set of wooden steps, mounted one of the horses, and set off down the street, the clop-clop-clop of hoofs echoing in the near-silence.

Something told me that sort of thing was going to be the new norm. Before the month was up, Port Toulouse was going to look pretty much like it did in all the old photographs from the eighteen hundreds, complete with horse-drawn wagons and the whole bit.

We instinctively stopped at a corner, still expecting the town's lone signal to tell us when it was safe to cross the street. Mom and I looked at each other and winced before looking both ways and stepping off the curb.

We walked through the front door of Bridget's, the attached bell jingling cheerily. The place was empty, save for a pair of votive candles flickering on the main counter and a hurricane lantern fixed to a beam.

Moments later, Bridget stuck her head out a door. “I'll be with you...oh! Hey, you two! Come on in. I'm just about closed up anyway.”

“Have you had much business today?” Mom asked.

Bridget shrugged. “About half of the usual. That's good in some ways, not so good in others.”

“Are you going to be able to stay open?” I asked.

She sighed. “Hard to say. It's still chilly enough that refrigeration won't be too much of a problem for another month or so. I can probably retrofit the stove and oven to run on oil or wood. Otherwise? Supplies are going to be the biggest thing. Oh, but go on in. That's on the agenda anyway.”

“Thank you,” said Mom.

Bridget raised an eyebrow. “For...?”

“Everything. Especially for including Jade.”

Bridget smiled. “Don't mention it. She's on the team anyway.” That made me feel all warm and fuzzy.

Mom nodded. We stepped around the long wooden counter and into the little break room. My warm fuzzy feeling quickly left me. Several candles burned at the center of the table, casting their yellow light on a collection of grim faces that all looked at me and Mom.

Well, all two faces. Coach Laurena and Shakey Eddie sat across from each other, each cradling a white mug of steaming beverage, probably a hot chocolate. Laurena waved weakly. I waved back.

“Wow,” said Mom, “cheery lot we are, eh?”

We edged into the room and sat down on folding metal chairs. I pulled a notebook and pencil out of my satchel. “What?” I said. “Coach Laurena suggested I take notes.”

Laurena chuckled. “Mental notes should be fine, I think. Oh, and when we're here, you can drop the 'Coach.' We're all more or less family anyway.”

I blinked. “We are?”

She nodded. “Our pod's small enough that everyone's related to everyone else in one way or another.”

“That's one reason the Council let your mother go topside,” said Eddie.

I looked at Mom.

“It was decided that we needed some more genetic diversity.”

“Yes,” said Bridget from the doorway. “Why do you think I have scaliosis?”

“Uh...birth defect?” I said.

“Inbreeding,” she said.

“Whoa.” I looked at Mom. “So...you're saying you deliberately seduced Dad?”

She smiled, then chuckled. “More or less. There's some truth to some of what's in Homer's 'Odyssey.'”

“Yes,” said Bridget, “we've recognized the problem for centuries. Only in the last couple of generations has it become bad enough to really be a problem.”

“So...then the sirens in Homer...?”

“Were sex maniacs,” said Eddie.

“Eddie!” said Laurena.

“What? You mermaids are all...”

“That's enough,” said Mom.

“But...”

“I said, that's enough. Don't give my daughter any ideas.”

“Any ideas?” I said. I was pretty sure I already had plenty of the kinds of ideas Eddie probably meant.

“We should discuss this later.”

“If you say so,” I said.

“Besides,” said Bridget, sliding two mugs of cocoa to me and Mom before lowering herself into a chair, “that's not why we're here.”

“To answer the threat of Mordor?” I said.

That brought a few chuckles.

“Something like that,” said Laurena.

“It can't be that bad.”

“You remember what we discussed at my office, right?”

I nodded.

“Well, settle in, then” said Bridget, “because this could take a while.”

Little did I know how full my brain was about to feel.


	5. Chapter 5

Port Toulouse, Nova Scotia  
March 24, CY 1, 2012 AD

The rest of the week at school, was pretty much more of the same Power Outage Special. The same people remained absent, with a few each day not reporting. As before, explanations for these absences were few and far between. Even a couple of teachers were absent. By Friday, fully half of the student body and a quarter of the faculty and staff were absent.

That shouldn't have been surprising. With the population of greater Port Toulouse so spread out, what had been a several-minute drive from various little communities around southern Talisman Lake and the adjacent Atlantic coast had suddenly become an hour or longer walk. Of course, the rumor mill hummed nonstop all day. Unlike before the Change, topics weren't limited to the usual teenage nonsense.

Chief on everyone's mind, and mouth, was the Change itself. What had caused it? Who was responsible? Theories ranged from a wide-scale EMP to Alien Space Bats, each one even more far-fetched than the last. The irony of the inconceivable and the improbable was not lost on me. More than once, I had to hold my tongue about the whole mermaid thing. Yet I wondered whether people might be more receptive to that sort of thing. If the immaterial was quickly becoming material once more, maybe I could stop hiding.

How wide-spread was it? Over the last few days, some information about that had filtered into town in the form of people on horseback, boat, or bicycle. According to reports, everything on Cape Breton Island from the furthest northeastern end past Sydney to Port Hawkesbury and Canso Strait to the southwest. In short, everything within a three-day bicycle ride, corresponding to well over sixty road miles, in every direction was affected.

Was it permanent? No one had any idea. Worse, opinion seemed split between those wanting to do something about it, versus those willing to just wait and see. It didn't take a mental genius to see that sitting around and twiddling our thumbs would likely get us all killed of things like starvation and disease.

How did it work? No one had any clue about that, either. Nor did anyone seem to have any idea how to go about finding out. Most people weren't really sure it mattered. Except for Dad. It was still driving him nuts. But it seemed to be a foregone conclusion that if the Change was here to stay, we were just going to have to live with it.

After that, it was the latest news of who had died of this or that, or who was probably going to die and how soon, always discussed in hushed tones. Fortunately, most of the Change-related deaths so far had occurred within the first forty-eight hours.

Of course, everyone was on edge, emotions high and raw. Most of us managed to keep it stuffed down during class. But in the halls and at recess, all the gloves came off, so to speak. I could barely look in any direction without seeing someone in tears, sometimes just quietly crying, sometimes in the grip of a full-blown breakdown, usually something in between. Girls, boys, women, men, it didn't matter. What really surprised me was that no one gave anyone else a hard time about it. In fact, someone nearby always stepped over to lend a comforting arm. Maybe all that stuff about disasters bringing people together was true. If so, maybe were weren't quite so doomed.

Which brought my mind back to Gran. I'd been trying to avoid thinking about her. Not on general principle, of course, but because I knew about her medical problems. Worse, I she'd been living on borrowed time, thanks to what, prior to Saturday, had been the miracles of modern technology. School gave me some sort of distraction. Dad had his job, such as it was. But we'd still discussed her in the evenings.

Cori caught up with me on my way out the door after last period.

“Hey, Jade.”

“Oh, hey, Cori. What's up?”

“Well, looks like they managed to scrounge up enough hourglasses and wind-up clocks to keep us all on schedule.”

I snorted. “Good-dy,” I said dryly.

“Are you okay?”

I took a deep breath, held it for a moment, then exhaled. “I don't know. I'm worried about Gran, is all. We're biking out to her place as soon as I get home. I just hope she's okay.”

Cori put a hand on my arm. “Whatever happens, we're here for you.”

“Thanks.” I looked up at the sky. “I'd better get going if we want to be there before dark.”

“Do you think you'll spend the night there?”

I shrugged, which turned into an involuntarily shudder. “I have no idea.”

“Well, you guys be safe out there.”

I frowned. “Now, you're talking like we're headed out into the uncharted wilderness along with Kelso, MacKenzie, and Thompson.”

“Just watch out for moose, okay?”

I nodded. “Always.”

* * *

Dundee, Nova Scotia  
March 24, CY 1, 2012 AD

Mom, Dad, and I coasted into Gran's driveway. What had been a half-hour drive had become a three-hour bicycle ride along twenty miles of the West Bay Highway. It had been a while since any of us had ridden, not to mention Dad's still being out of shape. Which was one reason we'd decided against the shorter, but hillier, southern route through Louisdale and Black River Rd. Even after Dad had pumped up all our tires, they still felt a little soft, and that had slowed us down a little, too.

What we'd seen along the way had only reinforced the reports that had been trickling in all week. A few local residents intercepted us along our lakeside route, always asking the same questions, and always dismayed at the dismal news we shared.

In some places, isolated sheet ice still floated in shaded coves. In others, patches of lingering snow still clung to north slopes. It was hard to believe that just last May, I'd paddled a canoe towing a swamped rowboat containing my mer-Mom all the way from Dundee to the locks.

We braked to a halt, tires crunching softly on damp needle duff. Early evening sun cast everything in deepening shadow. Catkins dangled from still-bare birch lining the shore. The budding tips of bottle-brush conifers stood out in bright green. A few birds flitted through the branches. Otherwise, everything was still.

We parked our bikes next to the porch and stepped up onto the deck. Mom knocked on the door. Nothing happened. Dad grabbed the knob. It twisted easily, the door swinging inward with a slight creak.

Mom put a hand on Dad's arm. “I should go first,” she said.

“But...”

“Darl, trust me.”

After a moment, Dad nodded and let Mom go first. I followed.

Inside, the only light came through the expansive bay windows facing the lake. That was not a good sign. Not that we were expecting the lights to be on, but Gran had always had a thing for scented candles. Instead of light or vanilla, darkness and a sickly-sweet odor greeted us. My skin began to crawl.

“Gran?” I called. Silence answered.

Mom stepped down the hallway toward Gran's room. I heard the bedroom door open, then almost immediately close again. Mom re-emerged into the failing daylight spilling into the main living area.

“Mom?” Dad croaked.

Mom shook her head. “You don't want to go in there,” she whispered.

“But...” Dad said.

“Honey,” said Mom, “you don't want to see this. Trust me. Did I tell you the story of what my cousin and I did when we were ten?”

He shook his head.

“I'll tell you later. Here's what we'll do. I'll go back in and wrap her in a few sheets. While I'm doing that, you two find a pair of shovels. When you're done with that, then you can help me move her out here. Okay?”

Dad nodded. We retreated as Mom lit a candle in the kitchen. We walked wordlessly to Gran's tool shed and pulled out two round-nosed shovels. Dad chose a likely-looking spot for a grave and shoved the blade into the ground. He froze.

“Dad?”

He drew in a deep breath, and looked at me. I recognized the expression from the week Mom had presumably drowned. It had broken my heart then, and it did it again now. I reached over and squeezed his arm.

We resumed digging. Already warm from our ride, it didn't take long for both of us to shed our jackets. Who knew undertaking worked up such a sweat?

I had no idea how long it took us to dig that hole, but we went down to granite bedrock. We didn't measure, but it sure looked a lot less than six feet deep. I'd have been surprised if it were more than four. But I seriously doubted anyone was going to cite us for any code violations.

Mom came back out just as we'd heaved the last shovels full of gritty, gravelly dirt out of the hole. We both looked up, met her gaze.

“I opened her bedroom window,” she said. She didn't need to elaborate. “I washed her off as best as I could,” she added. “Try not to breathe through your mouth.”

Dad and I followed her wordlessly into the house. The smell in Gran's bedroom hit me like a wave. I recognized it immediately, trying not to think about it. But the more I tried, the more I failed.

“I think I'm gonna hurl,” I said through clenched teeth.

Dad abruptly ducked into the bathroom and did just that. I made it to the kitchen sink just in time. Fortunately, it had been a while since lunch, and we hadn't really had dinner yet. The tap dripped twice when I turned it on. Right, Gran was on a well. No power, no pump. No pump, no water. I was going to have to just live with the taste of bile in my mouth for a while. Bummer.

Back in Gran's room, a patchouli-scented votive candle burned on a night stand. A human-shaped bundle lay in the middle of Gran's bed, wrapped in a deceptively cheery floral sheet leftover from the seventies. We all stopped and spent a few moments just looking at Gran's body laying there. Wordlessly, Mom took her feet, while I helped Dad with her head end.

We all grunted as the dead weight sagged toward the floor. I reminded myself to lift with my legs, not with my back, trying to forget what it was I was lifting. Long before we made it to the front door, I'd come to thoroughly resent Gran's “pleasantly plump personality,” as she'd always put it.

By the time we eased her body into her grave, we'd almost dropped her four times. In fact, we nearly dropped her into her grave, too. I was sure it must have been the most awkward burial ever.

Mom and Dad both stood there for a minute or three, hands braced on their knees, panting. I was slightly out of breath myself, and thankful for all the exercise I'd been doing over the last year.

After a minute or so, I grabbed one of the shovels standing in the dirt and rock that Dad and I had pried out of the ground a little earlier. I stopped, then glanced at Dad. Our eyes met. For several pregnant moments, no one moved. Then he nodded.

I twisted the shovel, letting its load fall into the hole, landing on Gran's body with dull thumping sounds. Tears welled up in my eyes. Those tears dropped into my grandmother's grave along with each scoop of dirt and rocks.

I lost track of time before Dad joined me, and together we buried Gran, silent tears streaming down our cheeks. At some point, Mom took over for Dad.

Daylight continued to fade with every scoop of dirt and by the time we'd scraped the last of it off the ground and onto the mound, we could barely see.

For several moments, no one moved or spoke.

“So,” I croaked, finally breaking the silence, “now what?”

“We should go inside,” said Mom. “We can take care of the rest tomorrow.”

“But...”

“Jade,” she said gently, “it's getting cold. There's nothing more we can do out here. And we're all exhausted.”

“Umm...” I began.

“I'll go in and close her door. We can flush the sink and toilet with lake water.”

“Doesn't...didn't...she have camping gear? I don't know if I can sleep in there.”

I felt Mom's hand on my shoulder. “It'll be okay,” she said softly.

I slowly nodded. Somehow, the idea of spending the night in Gran's house, when she'd died just down the hall, gave me the creeps. It wasn't logical, but neither was the Change, to say nothing of the long list of illogical things that had been my life for the last year.

Dad and I retrieved our coats from their hanging places, pulled them back on, and followed Mom back into the house. She sent me out to the lake with a two-gallon bucket while Dad went to work lighting a fire in the wood stove.

By the time I'd returned, all the other windows had been opened and a dozen fragrant candles and two sticks of cedar incense burned in the living room, driving out the lingering smell. I poured a little water down the kitchen sink and the rest into the toilet, then went back out for another bucket.

When I came back in, I saw Mom and Dad standing beside Gran's small dining table. Mom held a piece of paper in her hand. They both looked up at me.

“She left us a note,” said Mom.

The bucket almost slipped out of my fingers. I recovered my control of it just long enough to set it roughly on the floor, ignoring the small bit of it that sloshed out onto my shoe. I walked over and peered at it. I recognized Gran's handwriting.

Mom began to read aloud, her voice faltering in the several places where the otherwise tidy script went all scribbly.

“Dear family, if you're reading this, I didn't make it. Darlymple, shut up and let me finish.”

Mom and I briefly looked at Dad before returning our attention to the paper.

“Yes, my pacemaker went out. It hurt like a motherfucker.”

I blinked. I'd never known Gran to use actual profanity, except for that one time when I was eight and she stepped into a yellowjacket nest. That she used it now told me a lot.

Mom twitched and kept reading. “Darl, you know where my will is, for all the good it'll do if this whatever it is goes on.

“I want you to know how proud I am of all of you. The happiest days of my life were when you brought Michaela home, when Jade was born, and when Micky came back to us.

“Jade, you go and marry that boyfriend of yours. No, not today, but do it. He's good for you. Take care of that sibling of yours, and make sure she or he knows about your mother as soon as she...he...can learn how to swim.

“I trust you dealt with my mortal remains as we've discussed several times. If you haven't, what the hell are you waiting for? Go ahead and cry. It'll do you all some good. We all have an expiration date. Mine just happened to come a little sooner than we all expected.

“I don't know what else there is to say that hasn't been said already. Except that I love you all. That can never be said too much.

“As always, make yourselves at home. Help yourselves to everything in the kitchen. It's not like I'm going to need it for much longer anyway.

All my love, Emily Lynn Baxter”

We stood there in silence for several moments.

“Wow,” said Mom. “She knew.”

“She loved us,” I said.

Dad started crying. Mom and I put arms around him. He'd always been a big softy on the inside.

Mom slowly set the paper back onto the table. “Jade,” she said, “would you please put some water on the stove to boil? We should eat something.”

I nodded and wordlessly went to it. When I turned around, Mom had put Dad onto the sofa. He stared into the woodstove fire. I walked over and hugged him hard.

“It's...” he began, then paused, “...it's just like when we lost you, Micky,” he said. “It hurts like that.”

“I know,” she said.

“Yeah,” I echoed, “it does.”

Some time later, we all sat on the sofa, eating Kraft macaroni-and-cheese with sliced-up hot dogs mixed in. It hit me that there might not _be_ mac-and-cheese or hot dogs anymore. Pasta, maybe. Cheese, definitely. Sausages of some sort, sure. But it wasn't going to be the same. And my unborn sibling would never know anything else. Maybe that wouldn't be so bad. It still felt kind of surreal.

After a time, Mom spoke. “Some of our funeral rites are similar to yours. We take our dead to our burial ground and pile rocks over the body. Then we wait until scavengers have consumed the flesh, returning it into the Circle. Then we remove the rocks and inter the bones in a mausoleum.

“They do that in other countries, too, and for good reason. Seeing a person's body a day or two after death is one thing. Seeing their bones is something else. But in between?

“When my uncle died, my cousin and I thought it would be a good idea to go back a week after the primary funeral.”

She chuckled. “Oh, how wrong we were! Misguided youth, you know? We un-rocked him, and...well, it wasn't pretty.” She chuckled ruefully. “A water-logged dead body looks a little different. But, well, a dead body is a dead body. Be thankful you didn't see her like that. You don't want that memory.”

“So you took the bullet for us?” I said.

She nodded. “Trust me, it's better this way. We, and especially you two, need to remember her as she was in life.”

Dad sighed heavily in the darkness. One by one, we shared stories and memories of Gran. Some of them, I hadn't heard before. Others were comfortably familiar.

At some point, we shut the windows again, dampered the stove, and put out the candles. We tossed a few blankets onto the living room floor and bedded down for the night. I didn't know how long I laid there, but it was long enough to hear Dad start snoring on the other side of Mom.

**Author's Note:**

> "A Reiteach" as performed by Runrig:  
> www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q-lMr6ua9B0  
> Though I'm more partial to the arrangement on their album "Proterra," which is closest to what I have in mind for how the characters sing the song in this chapter.
> 
> Full "Tir Nan Og" lyrics and English translation:  
> www.celticlyricscorner.net/murray/tir.htm  
> I wish I could have found a recording of this to share. It's a very pretty song, one I found on the CD "Scottish Folk at its Best."


End file.
